Queen of the Rifles
by shelter
Summary: The story of Lady Eboshi: her humble servant life in the city to her rise as the mistress of Irontown. Chapter 14 posted!
1. Better to Understand

**Queen of the Rifles**  
The Rise of the Lady of Irontown

**Disclaimer:**Princess Mononoke is not mine to own, but is the product and artwork of Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli's creativity.

**1. Better to Understand**

As it did this morning and as it would do many mornings after, the sun rose gloomily through fog, over the array of houses in the towns far below it, spread out on a plain gouged out of the mountains. In this valley laid the sprawl of a thousand souls destined for to live an existence crowded in by the hills of both sides of the plain, like grains in a rice bowl. In the midst of the sprawl, the epicentre of human civilization lay open to the gods of heaven, seeking their blessing, gaining their favour.

The gods watched over the people, and in return the people honoured their presence on lowly earth. The Emperor was the divine regent of heaven; he dwelt in a palace resembling the palace of heaven, and the temples he built – or which were built from times long before – were symbols the gods were with them. The combination of the temples, shrines, palaces and houses all clustered in between the two slits of mountain ranges, was where the only place where man was fit to dwell.

Kyoto, the centre of the known universe, the city of the Emperor, the feet of the throne of the heaven.

* * *

"You must hurry, Aiyo!"

The voice like the swipe of a fan came down onto the young girl's conscience and she struggled to put on her wooden clogs. Why were they so stiff and stubborn today, of all days? When she needed to be dressed at her best? The crest of her sleeve fell on her hand just as he tied the strap as tight as she could to her little feet. The moment she had gotten the troublesome robe out from her clogs, she was on her feet almost immediately.

"Hiojo! Juri! Takako! Aiyo! Line up, quick! Before Father returns."

Following the instructions of Mother, she moved into line, beside her older sisters and eldest brother, who was proudly holding a short sword sheathed in his robe. He had begged Father for the honour of having the sword for the ceremony and succeeded. With his air of pride, his robes bearing the family colours, he looked like a mini-Father. Aiyo's thoughts turned aside to Mother; how would she have felt.

Assembled obediently at the sliding door, Aiyo shuffled her feet quietly on the mat, only to be snapped at by Juri, her older sister. Unlike her, Aiyo was the only daughter not in heavy white make-up, saffron dappled lips, thinly mascara-ed eyes and with a chin leant suggestively into a pout – the trademarks of geisha in training. Why Mother had allowed both Juri and Takako to enroll in that school for fine arts was a mystery yet understood by the young Aiyo. Was it on Father's request? Or did his lord instruct him? But it meant she only saw Takako during the when only the students were allowed breaks.

All training, Aiyo learnt at this age, was tough work.

In a flurry of preoccupied worry, Mother almost dashed up right up to her four obedient children waiting at the door, instructing the servants to prepare the dining quarters and make the tea. They were expecting them any moment now, she insisted, the children had better behave themselves or they would be beaten. The order was directed at Aiyo, who had a tendency of looking down at her feet when at attention. Then she too, like her children, took her place beside the door.

Several moment passed; Aiyo shuffled her feet again. Was it worth all this waiting? But her siblings stood stone-faced and still.

Then the herald, very distant but loud enough: "Long live Hirado Asano! Long live the Lord Asano of Kyoto!"

Father and Mother and Hiojo had spoken of this visit long before today. Sufficient as her imagination was, Aiyo did not see the bug fuss which was being made by the visit of the Lord to the house of his subordinate samurai. What was the big deal? Did not Lord Asano livedin that big mansion south of the city near the temple where they burn incense to him every day? But Lord Asano was Lord Asano, and Father would not dare to show any disrespect.

"Long live the Lord of the Rising Sun and Thousand Samurai!"

Aiyo realised the procession was almost at the doorstep; she could already hear the music. The cymbals she could already hear a long time before, but the shrill cry of the ceremonial winds and flutes were only just wafting over. She thought how impressive the sight would be: a Lord on his horseback, being accompanied by his legions of samurai escorts as he rode down the street, half-led by Father in his best robes and attire, the only samurai not in armour, for it was his house the Lord was visiting.

"Long live the Emperor! Long live Lord Asano! Long live the Lord of the Thousand Samurai!"

The climax reached, the music began to float higher, the cymbals banging faster, the flutues heavier – Lord Asano would be dismounting his steed. Once his feet had touched the ground, Father would be required to kowtow to him, or face losing his head for disrespect.

The brief period of silence, as Aiyo gazed through the translucent wooden screen of shapes and figures moving around outside. They were like the samurai legends she saw on the _Bunraku_ puppets Mother sometimes brought her to, moving without effort, pacing the street outside and the imagination without them actually taking place.

When the door slid open quietly, Aiyo tiptoed to get a better glimpse of the events outside. But before she could make out more than a slice of the bright sun-lit street and its massing crowd, Takako whispered a reproach. Her sister's stern face, made more austere by the whiteness, awfully reminded Aiyo of monsters she'd seen in those plays. But there was no more space for daydreaming or imagination. The Lord which Father had always spoken about was crossing the great door of Japan, the line of servant and served.

Aiyo saw one foot pass the door, and within moments, the entire frame of the great Lord was in the same porch which only earlier she was struggling with her footwear. Lord Asano was a tall man, but Aiyo expected taller; he was dressed in the deepest black ceremonial robes, topped with the helmet of antler horns, which Aiyo realised was the same helmet Father wore, just much larger; but she expected something more. And his face was expressionless, as he dusted the dirt of his shoes and proceeded to the porch to inspect his servant's children and household.

Mother bowed deeply, but she was smiling with the traditional welcome. But Lord Asano seemed unmoved, much like Father's when he did not want to be bothered or when he was in intense thought. Aiyo observed his face did not show any emotion other than it was probably quite warm outside. Then Aiyo realised she should have been looking straight rather than in the direction of the Lord. Curses! Had she committed a great crime? Would she be beaten by Father and Mother now? She thought surely they noticed her inattention.

But as Lord Asano's entourage stepped into the porch, it appeared to overflow with people. Father seemed to jostle his way in. Yet he maintained his dignity; with a few short, soft words, Aiyo listened like a bird in winter as Father introduced the family: the Eboshi family, whose liege and rightful Lord was the great Lord Asano. This was it. On Father's signal, she would have to bow.

Father mentioned one single solitary word. On signal, all the five lesser members of the Eboshi family fell to their knees. Aiyo ignored the long sleeve of her robe getting into her way, and instead hoped she would not lose her balance on her unsteady clogs. Slowly, in pace with the rest, she performed the required kowtow. Then she felt a cramp in her toes returning to her feet.

Father would now usher Lord Asano into the dining quarters for tea and a conversation. At this the Lord's family would adjourn to another room, the entourage dismissed to a waiting area outside, his loyal guards be served and the host's children be excused.

Which meant only Aiyo would have nothing to do. Father would be conversing with Lord Asano, while Mother, Juri and Takako would be rushing to serve the guests. Too young to be part of the conversation, too young to serve, Mother ushered her away into one of the bedrooms. But before that, Aiyo managed to steal a glance at Lord Asano's two sons – what were their names again (or did she even know them?) – as they followed their father into the dining quarters.

Aiyo followed her Mother's orders bluntly, closing the sliding door of the second bedroom. She would have to amuse herself now, with all the adults busy attending to their guests. With the sunlight from outside streaming into her room by the plainness of the window, she moved closer. There was a birch tree outside; maybe there she could find a sparrow to look at –

Slam!

Aiyo jumped. At the sound of pacing footsteps in the room, she turned to the door. Her brother, Hiojo, was storming towards a dark corner of the bedroom, and once there he firmly planted himself down onto the tatami mat, cross-legged, cross-armed, like a bear who had not eaten all through winter. Surely his mood was like one. His robe slightly disheveled, he did not seem to acknowledge Aiyo's presence.

Aiyo knew the wild moods of her brother, which Mother always said were like "winds on the top of a mountain". What was he upset about now? Did the samurai short sword with the family name on it clash badly with his crimson red robes? Were they not the appropriate colour for the first son of the family?

Hiojo cast the sword and his sheath from him, landing to one corner with a vulgar clang of metal. Then he noticed Aiyo. Almost immediately he adjusted his robes, and sat up in the formal fashion.

"What were you looking at?" he demanded.

Aiyo looked up at her elder brother, his face almost obscured in the shadowed corner of the room. She answered: "Why did you come in with a loud noise?"

Her brother did not reply just yet. But instead, he straightened himself up some more. Then as if he suddenly remembered the sword in its sheath, he stumbled forward to take it; Hiojo drew the powerful sword from the sheath, much to Aiyo's alarm, and moved towards her.

"Do you see this sword?" he motioned to the blade now flashing maliciously in his hands. "This sword has served the Asano family for a long time, longer than great-grandfather's time. And now that is it my turn to carry the sword, they will not allow me to even sit at the table to dine with the Lord I was born to serve!"

Aiyo was confused. What did he mean? Did he not carry the sword just now? Why was he so angry when he already carried the sword, even now?

"Because Father is a samurai. Because Father serves the great Lord Asano, So I will be a samurai like him, whether Mother likes it or not," Hiojo seemed to pause as he watched Aiyo's eyes follow his cool, relaxed movements with the sword with a suppressed wonder. He laughed. "Of course you are too young to understand what all this means. But it will be good if you did.

"Too young to understand. But still better to understand. Better to understand samurai than become a dolled-up puppet like your two sisters."

He rambled, without thinking about neither sword or Aiyo watching from behind him.

Aiyo did not understand. But her eyes were still following the gleam of the blade in the little sunlight drawn into the room.

* * *

**Notes:**

_So, how? To clarify things, Aiyo is Lady Eboshi, but as a young child. There is a reason I went into so much detail, you will know later.  
Anyway, I need someone to comment on the setting, mood, tone and character, anything. I'm not very sure if I have gotten the history and the customs right. (I wouldn't mind a beta reader). But I'm open to any ideas, as long as they can help to improve the story. Thanks._

_(22.01.06)_


	2. Daughters and Daggers

**2. Daughters and Daggers**

_**Disclaimer:**Princess Mononoke is not mine to own, but is the product and artwork of Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli's creativity._

There was a time when Father left for somewhere at someplace, and he never really returned to be part of the family. The other members did not seem to notice this, Aiyo thought, because they never spoke anything of Father's absence at the meals, or at the festivals. He did return though, sometimes at night he would knock silently on the door and emerge in full battle order from the cold night.

Aiyo noticed this; she was curious, but more so she was a bit upset, because Father never noticed her at all when he came back for these short visits. He spoke with Mother only; once or twice he shared a word with Hiojo and Juri and Takako, but never with her. Was it because she was the youngest that Father did not bother? Aiyo did not understand, but whether she was too young or not to understand, it was a different matter completely.

* * *

During the summer, when Father was not around, Aiyo followed her family on the annual pilgrimage to Nara in the south to visit the temple there. Normally, Father would take charge of the journey, but Hiojo seemed old enough to be in complete control of the transport, lodging and other loose ends. This journey was important to the family, Aiyo noticed; for even her sisters, who were still deep in their training at the fine arts school, were to accompany them. If it was so important, then where was Father? 

They traveled by carriage, accompanied by several of their servants, led by Hiojo at the helm. As Aiyo already knew, the journey would take two days, down through the winding but busy roads leading out from the royal city to Nara further south. Mother looked more solemn than usual, while her sisters seemed unwilling to entertain her. Even Takako did not speak much. So instead of spending the trip in a languished silence, Aiyo exited the carriage to be with her brother at the helm.

And they too travelled in a kind of silence. Hiojo had the same short sword during Lord Asano's visit sheathed in his robes, and he was wearing a smaller version of the helmet with antler horns Father wore with his battle armour. All these observations Aiyo made, waiting patiently for the moment her curiosity would erupt for her to ask the inevitable question.

"Where is Father?" Aiyo asked without warning.

Hiojo's grip on the reins tightened, as the horse pulling the carriage yelped. He turned to the innocent face of his youngest sister; too innocent, completely untouched by the unruly, unwholesome events spinning the world out of control. So he saw that face, and resolved from then on, not to put his sister in such ignorant peril.

"He is doing work for our good Lord Asano," Hiojo elaborated in a single breath, leaving much to the imagination.

Aiyo caught the phrase, and pounced on it with a counter in way Hiojo had expected: "What work?"

And even though he expected it, it took Hiojo slightly longer to even get it to the tip of his tongue: "Lord Asano decided to reward Father, for all the years of generous service the family has shown his house. He decided to appoint Father the leader of an army of five hundred samurai, to settle his dispute with the royal family."

Aiyo was confused, she did not understand. Two things did not make sense, although she was very sure Hiojo could explain them. "Is that a reward?" she questioned.

Hiojo did not even blink an eyelid as he continued guiding them down the country road.

"Yes, it is a reward. For a samurai to lead an army, it is great honour, especially when he was chosen by his Lord for it. Remember the stories Father always told you? The samurai of old were honoured to lead and fight, because it brought pride to our family name in victory."

"But what if they lose?"

Hiojo buried that thought deeper inside him. "Then the samurai would be remembered for his leadership."

"Then why is he fighting the emperor?"

"Did you not listen to me?" Hiojo gave his younger sister a stern glare, although he knew he did not have Mother's permission to discipline her. "Father is not fighting the Emperor. It is a sin to disobey the Emperor. He is fighting, for Lord Asano, one of the lords of the provinces, who happens to be part of the royal line. Get what I mean?"

Aiyo was not satisfied. "But why would Lord Asano want to fight the Emperor?"

Hiojo was beginning to get impatient at all of Aiyo's questions. He may have heard about Father's skirmishes from a friend of one of Lord Asano's sons, who heard it from a brother of one of the close aides to the deputy of Father far north in the Yedo province, but he did not question so much.

"Lord Asano is our Lord. He has his own reasons, and if he is willing to honour Father in making those decisions, then they do not bother me," Hiojo stated clearly, almost animatedly. "Besides, do you not wish for our family to finally get the honour it deserves? Father is going to give our family an honourable name by leading Lord Asano to victory."

"Well I don't think honour is that good after all," Aiyo sulked. "Father never comes back…"

"Watch your tongue!" snapped Hiojo. And again with alarm she saw his hand move towards the sheathed sword, causing the horse to panic at the sudden movement.

"Father is defending our family honour you stupid girl!" he barked. "Whether you like it or not, he is defending our family name. And when I begin my service as samurai, I will serve with a good and honourable name too!"

Hiojo's eyes, almost flaming, bore down on Aiyo, now hushed and close to tears at the outburst. Then as if both realised their conversation would rouse Mother and Juri and Takako behind, both eldest brother and youngest sister returned to silence, as if nothing had even been said between them.

But Aiyo's eyes remained on the sword in Hiojo's robe.

* * *

At the great temple in Nara, where Aiyo had been told all of her ancestors lay buried within (and where all those who would come after her would be laid in earth beside them), Mother led them through formalities, performing duties which would take the whole summer to accomplish. 

For high up in the hills, surrounded by rock and tor, and overrun by scrub and tree, were the graves of the ancestors. Every summer it was the duty of those surviving to tend to those graves, clean them and lay on them fresh offerings for the guardian spirits of the Eboshi family. Though the trek out from the calm human surroundings of the temple and into the wildness of the wilderness tracks was tough, Aiyo had, just like Mother and her sisters, accepted it. It was tradition. It was duty.

The monks at the temple sent them off, and promised them lodging and victuals on their return. Lord Asano's character had bought these monks, Hiojo had told Aiyo once, these were armed and influential men who were to benefit from the same Lord with whom their Father served. But how come, Aiyo thought, how come monks could take sides when they were meant to atone for the dead and look after the living?

Aiyo learnt not to open her mouth when fulfilling duty. Past the gate which led out from the temple to the highway of steps ascending into the hills were fresh graves, dug to accommodate more men passing on into the spirit realm by way of the latest conflicts north in Yedo. Hiojo had told her that as she asked about the newly-churned earth. She asked another question: why were the gravediggers unearthing the old tombstones to replace them with new ones?

"Keep quiet and don't ask," he replied. His face was overcast like the sky above.

A light drizzle helped them on their way, but the hillsides were deserted. Fringing the hill dotted with crumbling stones, the wilderness blocked the view to the north. Mother scolded her whenever she paused to observe the forest. Unholy things, wild spirits lived in there, she would tell her. Things which had been alive since the start of the world but she was sure were hostile. And no, she should not ask, and she should just keep walking.

The Eboshi grave was nothing much to behold: just a curved mound of stone surrounding a patch of grass still withered from the burnings of last year's offerings. The characters "Eboshi" were carved into the stone; beyond that, it looked like any stone mould.

Like before, Aiyo knew the way things were done. Mother burned the incense on joss sticks and placed food offerings for the spirits, while the rest waited in silence, praying and reflecting. Would a few words to a dead grandfather she never knew make the spirit happy? The family name, written on incense paper in red ink, was pasted on the stone, and as the drizzle spat water in their faces, the wind blew the pungent incense far down the hillsides, where Aiyo thought the spirits in the forest must be dwelling and watching them. She did not believe in their power, but she did believe in them anyway. Aiyo knew from experience all spirits were harmless, simply appeased with prayer were they not? As what their family had done for centuries.

Then once the offerings were laid, the family cleaned the tomb. The dead grass was a problem, but Aiyo was sure the spirits would not mind, because there was so much greenery in the nearby forest. Nonetheless, Takako had found flowers to place on the stone, and Hiojo laid on the patch a several pieces of cloth and a white stash.

When Aiyo asked later, Hiojo told her they belonged to Father, but as he was absent and fighting for the family's honour, the guardian spirit needed to be alerted to his call for duty.

And from her last question to Mother till they completed their visit and paid their respects, Aiyo did as she was told, not speaking, even as she followed the path back down through the slopes of stones and green flowers, and back to the temple whose monks always treated a samurai family with respect, and back to the ways which were always going to confuse her.

* * *

There was a time when Father did return, and did come to see Aiyo. This was on their second week in at the temple at Nara. On one of the warm humid evenings, Aiyo was surprised to see Father speaking to both Mother and Hiojo; he looked paler than usual, and this time his right arm was bandaged in an ugly looking white rag. But more to Aiyo's surprise, he went over to her. 

"My dear cherry blossom, have you forgotten me?" he asked.

"Father," Aiyo bowed in respect, "where have you been? And why have you not come to see me?"

He showed no uneasiness at being asked this question straight in the face. But found a reply immediately: "I am doing something very important for our Lord Asano, and have not much time to explain it to someone as small as you. Maybe one day your elder brother will tell you about and how heroic I was…"

Aiyo's eyes brightened. "Would you tell me a story then about your battles, Father?"

His eyes gave a hint of disapproval. "There're better things than to just listen to stories, sweet. I have to go soon , so I must be quick in telling you what I want you to do."

"But…"

He cut her off and gently raised her to her feet. "Do not say anything or else I will get angry," he said softly, leading her into one of the inner chambers of their rooms. Once he understood they were alone, he stooped down to her, so that their faces were level, and began to speak.

"Remember, my child, that you are a daughter of a samurai. And what do the daughters of samurai do?"

Aiyo knew he was testing, so she repeated the words which both Father, Mother and sometimes, Hiojo, with the help of Juri and Takako, had drilled into her the moment she had mastered speaking.

"To defend the family honour and to serve our Lord Asano."

"Perfect. And how would you defend the family honour?"

This must be a trick question, because Aiyo knew nobody taught her this one. After all, she was only five and she could not be expected even now to defend the family honour, would she?

Father removed something from the folds of his armour, and presented it to Aiyo: a small wooden sheath, barely the size of his palm. It looked exactly like a miniature version of the sword her brother had been wielding around.

"Keep this with you wherever you are. It is this that makes out a samurai's daughter from any other girl," he flashed the sheath, and the dagger inside, to her. The dagger, as thin as a needle, fought for her attention with Father's voice. "And as all daughters of samurai, you must not fall to the enemy. When all is lost, remember this action."

Father drew the tiny dagger, and then in a quick, mock demonstration stabbed it into his armour where the abdomen was, drawing it up and turning it, before releasing his hold and letting the dagger drop onto the ground.

Aiyo watched, her face without expression, lacking clarity but filled with a new kind of understanding, a fresh understanding, as if from this moment on the idea had just dawned on her.

"This I leave to you now, sweet," Father said, returning the dagger in its sheath and placing in the pocket of her robes. "Remember: you are the daughter of a samurai, you know what should be done when all is hopeless.

"I will be gone again, do you understand? Gone for a long time now. So this is my gift to you, that you may know what you should do. Remember: you are the daughter of a samurai. Do not let the Eboshi name fall into dishonour."

Before Aiyo could even speak, Father was out of the room, closing the screen behind him. He paced through the living quarters to Mother, then to Hiojo.

When Aiyo caught up with him, he had mounted his horse, and his face only half-turned to see her as he disappeared from her conscience once again.

* * *

**Notes:**  
_Thank you soapfiction. The main point wasn't really surviving in a male-dominated society, but you've given me extra to think and write about.  
It's Jan 30th here and the end of the second day of the lunar new year. To all those who celebrate with me, happy lunar new year to you all as well. May the year of the dog bring prosperity & good health. _

_(30.01.06)_


	3. First Day of Fall

**3. Last Day of Fall**

**  
**

"What have you been telling her?" Takako demanded of Hiojo, on the return trip back to Kyoto. Aiyo had been more distracted than usual, almost completely deaf to the admonishment of Mother and her elder sisters. Her face remained conscientiously blank, ever since her last meeting with Father. Regularly she would be seen with one hand in her robes, her hands caressing that sheath with the smiling, sharp dagger.

Hiojo, too, since the day Father returned, had not been quite himself. On the trip to Nara he had been brash and vulgar, domineering and sometimes short-tempered. Aiyo had heard Takako utter under her breath how the male ego could be so inflated with a sword and without a father. But on this journey home, he was frighteningly subdued. More a cattle driver at the helm, rather than the provisional head of the family.

But he chose not to respond there and then, and Takako tilted her manicured face in a gesture of annoyance, approaching Aiyo instead.

"Did Father talk to you about the poniard?" she asked her youngest sister gently.

Aiyo, who had also been very silent, raised her face to her sister's in curiosity.

"Dear sister!" Takako exclaimed. "That's the proper name for that dagger you're grasping so tightly under your robes! Do not all daughters of samurai have to learn this lesson from their fathers? Don't look so shocked."

Aiyo looked to the sibling with whom she had most faith in. Takako was her teacher when it came to cooking, or keeping and tending to Father and Hiojo's clothes. She wondered whether underneath her painted face and brightly coloured kimono was there also a sheath given by Father.

"I received my first teaching from Father when I was only six years' old," she continued. "He taught me how the poniard should be positioned, and how it should only be used as the last resort when all else has failed. Father would probably want to teach you the rest when he has returned."

"Father will not be coming back," Hiojo said solemnly.

It caught Takako and Aiyo's attention immediately. Not because it was such a powerful statement, but because they all knew Hiojo was Father's favourite.

"And how would you know that?' Takako questioned.

"Because he told me. Lord Asano's forces have been outnumbered in the northern provinces, but he still sends Father to fight because he knows Father will fight for the house of Lord Asano and for our family name till the end.

"And because Father himself knows the odds are against him. He knows he will be like Yoshitsune, a noble warrior outnumbered and overrun."

Takako did not seem to approve. "A fine time to quote history and classics. Anyway, Lord Asano has doted on us. He would not order Father to do something which is suicidal, would he not?"

Even as young as she was, Aiyo could sense the false confidence in her sister's voice. But her usual curiosity overtook her again, and she asked her brother, "Who is Father fighting? He told me you knew about all his heroic acts. Tell me, please!"

Hiojo looked to Takako, whose face showed neither show approval nor disdain. He himself was loathe to undertake such a bold task, knowing Aiyo would question him to no end.

"The Kamakura. He is fighting the Kamakura and the royal family. Lord Asano has a score to settle against them. Don't ask me, I do not know this in so much detail, but I know our Lord has always disliked the Emperor and his family. He claims they are not the true royal line."

"But rebellion against the Emperor is a sin!" cautioned Takako. "Should not Lord Asano know the consequences of his actions?"

Like the same conversation they had on the trip to Nara, Aiyo always pondered quietly the implications of Father's war with the Emperor, even if he was fighting only one of his servants. Anyway, she herself had not seen the Emperor. If he was so important, she should have at least seen him once.

"You think I care who the Emperor is?" went Hiojo. He seemed to be voicing Aiyo's exact thoughts. "I don't care about all this sin and atonement and whatever. All that matters is Lord Asano has always disliked him. And Lord Asano is always right. So now finally he has called Father to settle this dispute. His way, on his terms."

Takako, acting just in the way Hiojo imagined, could only peacefully whine under her breath, the reserved prayer of a samurai's daughter whose Father was caught up in something bigger than she could conceive: "May heaven forgive him."

But for once, Aiyo could understand. Was Lord Asano always right? She did not think so. Not when he could control monks. Not when he could send Father off to faraway places in the north. At the thought, she found the dagger sheath again; it brought a strange sense of comfort.

* * *

Then there was a day when things changed dramatically, like a sudden blast of the northern wind, like an abrupt change in tune.

All Aiyo could remember of the day was the sun falling through the shutters at the same room she was resigned to months ago when Lord Asano made his visit. The failing sunlight, change in intensity of winds, the unusual calm slipping into her home, made this day different. Prepare yourself, Hiojo had told her earlier. Aiyo saw his eyes were openly bloodshot. Had brother Hiojo been weeping? Did it have something to do with today?

It seemed the day was special, because around noon both Juri and Takako returned home. In their garb, looking flustered but keeping their air of conscious dignity they passed Aiyo, then joined Mother in the adjoining room. They were saying things which Aiyo could not make out; they were speaking fast and more excited than usual. Their movements – stand, kneel, sit, crouch, pace – were all reflected on the paper screen, the flesh and blood shadows of secrets they did not want Aiyo to know.

At one point they seemed to turn their attentions to Aiyo. She still staring fixated at their movements through the screen, did not immediately notice. Only then did she realise their pause in conversation and their faceless stares. But they soon reverted back to their conversation. Were they going to end soon, thought Aiyo, if not she would, as they did of her, get bored and find something better to do.

Close to an hour after her sisters had returned they concluded. It was only then when Aiyo realised Hiojo was not present with them. Those screens and the shadows cast by the incoherent light were deceiving.

She was approached by Takako. "Where is your brother?" she asked.

"I do not know. I thought he was talking to you inside."

"I hope he has not abandoned us," she spoke, the slightest touch of disapproval in her voice. Third sister would not speak ill of Hiojo now, would she? Aiyo knew Takako respected her only brother as much as she did.

"Abandoned?"

Takako looked at her sister. "Listen Aiyo, you know I love you. Juri does not speak to you often either, but she loves you in spite of her attitude. And so does Mother…"

Aiyo laughed. This was exactly what she needed after they completely ignored her minutes ago by excluding her from their conversation. But no need to be cross, thought Aiyo. She acted as if nothing had made her frustrated: "Why? You don't need to tell me that, third sister. I already know."

Takako could only manage a weak smile. "Be prepared, Aiyo. You may not understand what will happen next but remember that you are an Eboshi. Do not let the family name fall into dishonour."

Now Aiyo was even more confused. First brother and third sister told her the exact same thing. Was something coming? And where was Hiojo?

"Now. Be ready!"

Takako rushed off towards the dining quarters. Almost at the precise moment, a call came from outside the house. It was the similar call whenever a stranger visited premises.

"Is this dwelling that of the Eboshi family?" said the voice.

And Mother seemed to answer it. Aiyo could make out the sliding of the front door, and the figures of Mother receiving something from their visitor. But unlike all other visits which Aiyo had seen, this visitor did not stay. For the door shut soon after, and no chatter and greeting was muttered. Mother was alone in the porch with the stranger's gift.

Juri and Takako rushed to the front porch. Aiyo moved to the screen at the corner of the bedroom and the dining quarters, where the rest of her family was. She needed a better view of the gift. And why were her siblings and Mother so curious about it? She saw them examine the gift – it looked like a box – crowd and paw at it like curious children around a stray dog and then – silence.

Before Aiyo knew it, things were happening very fast.

Mother screamed. Juri and Takako recoiled from the gift. It was clearly a box. They appeared stunned and helpless. But after a brief moment they turned to help Mother – her sobs were horrible – but she threw them off – her face was now changed from the her calm, genteel exterior – it looked more like a _tengu_ now with her hair blown and the spasm of madness swept across her face.

Mother was hysterical. And then – Aiyo had not even taken in the sheer insanity of the scene taking place before her – Mother drew a small blade from beneath her robes, and threw it straight into her abdomen. She took it on a journey to the opposite side of her wound – and turning it so wistfully like she did the presses while preparing clothes – or like the claypots when cooking – before she drew it out. And then she fell to the floor, cushioned to break her fall by softened bamboo, but not the blood already pouring from her waist.

At first Aiyo could not believe her eyes. Her two sisters also stood watching with a sense of recognition beyond their understanding, as if the two of them were in a dramatic scene onstage and Aiyo was watching it all. As if it were all _Bunraku_ and the rash crumbling of that Mother figure was shoddy puppetry. But when Mother refused to move (even puppets were not completely limp), the real world hit into her like a stab of the a certain pointed dagger, now prominent in her robes.

_Seppuku._

She needed to watch first? Surely her sisters had to know what to do next?

But Juri was tearing like an autumn tree, and Takako was stock solid, like game caught in confusion. Between them, the grisly scene of Mother dead on the tatami and the stranger's gift…What was in the box?

Aiyo quietly edged her way out from her hiding place. At the very moment, there was another flash of movement: Juri – too – had in her hand the same small, pointed dagger which Father had given Aiyo at the temple in her hands. There was no ultimate cry of pain or sorrow. Aiyo saw it in its simplicity: a movement of robes, a flash of dagger and a stab to the bottom of the neck. It seemed very animated; Aiyo did not see it for what it really was, only until Juri herself fell slumped, did she slowly understand the unfurling tragedy.

Takako was still conscious enough to see Aiyo creeping towards the spectacle of Mother and her two sisters all frail on the floor. She knew what had been done, understood it was something she herself should undertake but she had yet to know its reason. She moved carefully, not wishing to look at the heap of robes at the centre of the room with the blade still in it, but she found enough courage to venture forth towards the stranger's gift.

Upon inspection, Aiyo realised what it was – a black box of beautifully lacquered bamboo. Its interior seemed lacquered red, traditional enough – filled with liquid – water – no, too clear – it had been filled with sake – and something had been preserved in it, suspended in the centre of the miniature pool. Aiyo toed closer, half knowing but not wanting to really know – it was a bulky object – a reflection – and –

Two eyes were staring at her. Two white, mirthless eyes.

This time she screamed. And fell back. She should have known. The hair, the familiar features, the bun if hair – and like the last time she saw Father at Nara – were all preserved, intact but shattered, peaceful but severed, in sake, in a box, brought by a stranger.

For Aiyo, the knowledge took no time in flooding her head. It was all connected, was it not? Hiojo's warnings of Father fighting a losing war; Father teaching her how to use her pocket dagger; and now the way Mother and Juri and Takako had all followed him to be with the rest of the family. Was this what Father meant by not letting the family name fall into dishonour?

Aiyo could not remember how long she let her girlish, astounded shriek hold. But with these thought flashing like lightning through her mind, the dagger sheath was beckoning, the flashy pointed blade now more tempting than ever.

She stepped away from the box, from the corpse of Mother, till she felt was a perfect place for the family name to be brought to honour. Was it supposed to be like this? No matter, she would soon learn. But she could not recall Father teaching her more than that repeated instruction: no dishonour for the family, no dishonour for the family. So she quietly and quickly removed the dagger from the sheath and made preparation for the strike.

"What in hell's name are you doing?"

She had already coiled her fingers around the dagger when Hiojo rudely interrupted. Did he not know the family name could not fall into dishonour?

"Stop playing a fool with that thing!" he took a single stride and knocked the dagger out of Aiyo's hands with the back of his scabbard. "Especially when you don't know how to use it."

Aiyo looked to her brother, like a wounded puppy – a little confused, a little angry, but most of all unsure what to do next.

"Why – why not?" was all she could ask.

"Because you're not them," she gestured to the three sets flopped, bloody robes behind her, "and because you're better than that.

"Just because Father is dead doesn't mean you go commit _seppuku_."

Aiyo, too traumatized by the sight of having all her family slaughtered by her own imaginations or right before her eyes, could not speak. She shuddered, close to tears.

"All right all right, come _on_. Let's go before you get more stupid ideas."

Hiojo seized her by the hand, leading her out the door and into the streets. The terrifying sight of three bloodied bodies on the floor of her own home jostled with the understanding now finding room in her confused head.

* * *

"First Brother, why did you leave the house before the… the box arrived?"

"I had to get out. I went to meditate and beg ancestors for forgiveness that I didn't do my duty as a son to protect Father. And that I won't be able to accompany him to heaven with Mother and second and third sisters. I thought I should commit seppuku as well, before I thought: what's the point? Dead, I can only see the family honoured. Alive, I can kill the snake who killed Father."

They had been walking for hours. Aiyo's tears had long dried and now, in evening in these last days of fall, the winds were starting to blow hard. And the doors to all the houses were beginning to close.

Aiyo could not recall walking any further on foor in her life. When distances like these needed to be undertaken, a cart was always on hand. By now, the grief stalled up with in her was ebbing slowly, only waiting for a tide to push it to the surface of her memory once more. But now the cold was more important.

The quarters on both sides had become dimly lit, with only eerie red lanterns like globes floating beneath the eaves of some of the houses. Deeper, darker alleys emptied more wind into the main road Aiyo was being led down, but there was hardly a soul traveling on this ill night.

Hiojo himself seemed uneasy. Glancing silently, he appeared to choose a destination.

"Come, sister, this way. I know where we can spend the night."

The floating red globes came into stark view – bulging, fat lanterns with characters on them. Aiyo viewed them, mesmerized, as Hiojo led her into the porch of the house, and knocked on the door. It slid open by an inch, splashing into the dark porch a strip of golden light onto Aiyo's face, and the distant mumblings of people within.

Aiyo could not hear the words Hiojo was speaking to the person at the door. But they were brief, and both he and the person whose face was so blurred by the slices of light trailing from within exchanged gifts and acknowledgement. Before she knew it, she was being ushered inside.

"Come, this way, Aiyo."

"First brother, aren't you following me?" Aiyo called as Hiojo turned to leave.

Hiojo stopped in the act of a fast trot. "Not today," he smiled warmly. Warm as the light now almost leading her by the hand into the first room of her new house. "But be prepared."

And the door slid shut.

* * *

**Notes:**

_I'd like to thank soapfiction for all his support. It doesn't seem like much, but I'm still pushing on despite having a stressful March on the cards. The narrative on Eboshi's childhood has more or less ended, because I thought too much elaboration would spoil the plot, so prepare for more – familiar – stuff next chapter._

_Seppuku (hari-kiri/ ritual suidide) is not something women did in medieval Japan. Daughters of samurai, it is traditionally believed, were to commit suicide not by sword, but by stabbing themselves in the jugular vein (base of the neck) with a pocket poniard, the same small needle-like dagger Eboshi adores so much. My sourceof info is the book _The Way of The Samurai_ by Richard Storry & Werner Forman. _

_(19.02.06)_


	4. Tayu

**4. Tayu**

At the door of the guest house at Shimabara there was an altar where the girls burned incense, to the gods who would grant them blessings with their looks and with their men. A small clay figure was the object of their adoration: a stone-faced, lifelessly praying figure looking out to nowhere.

But more significant than the incense or the joss sticks was the book which sat beside the idol, bound and well-read, placed ceremoniously on its perch beside those joss sticks and joss stick holders. It had similar, if not greater importance to the girls, for they held the rules of the house and the commandments by which all women should live, the law tayu had to live by.

Aiyo, nineteen and no longer confused, hated that book. Whenever she stepped out of line, her madam would administer discipline according to those orders:

'_A woman has no particular lord. She must look to her husband as her lord and must serve him with all worship and reverence, not despising or thinking lightly of him. The great life-long duty of a woman is obedience. In her dealings with her husband both the expression of her countenance and the style of her address should be courteous, humble, and conciliatory, never peevish and intractable, never rude or arrogant – that should be a woman's first and chiefest care …' _

For the time being, unfortunately, Aiyo would not dare to even dream of a husband. She was of the right age and of the right beauty, as it was with all samurai daughters her age, to be married off. However, the fragile, frictional habitat of the guest house seemed a perverse reflection of the world Aiyo grew up in. A samurai daughter's duty was to her husband, but for a lady of the guest house like her, her duty was to her customers as her madam loved to constantly remind her.

She, too, in a twisted rank order, was their kind of lord and master. She fed them, clothed them and kept the guest house running. Outside, she insisted, was worse. Which led Aiyo to question sometimes: if the guest house was this bad, outside would have been a living, walking, breathing hell.

Outside the white screen door of the guest house was the street where her brother had brought her down those many years ago. For the rest of the girls, though, it was the tangible line between a present poverty and a certain freedom, a river too deep and wide to cross for the time being, but something which they could hope towards, one day at a time.

For this was the road which ran the border of Shimabara, Kyoto's pleasure quarters, and cut the fleshy world of the tayus' guest houses from the classy, chic tea houses of the geisha. Looking out from the window of her room, Aiyo knew the all stories the people said: on both sides of the road, the girls were both pretty and beautiful and seductive. But on the left, the girls in wore kimonos with ribbons behind; those loitering around on the right wore their ribbons on the front – the one damming difference between a geisha and a tayu.

"You're not going to the market today?" said a voice from behind her.

Reminding herself to stop dreaming, Aiyo picked her basket from the side of her bed. Her closest friend in this guest house, Meiko, was standing by the door; her robes were a cool blue, decorated with the an embroidery of willow trees. She had requested her to accompany her to the market. To prepare for tonight.

* * *

'_A woman must ever be on alert and must keep a strict watch over her own conduct. In the morning she must rise early, and at night go late to rest…'_

Every evening the ritual was the painfully routine. But tonight, on the first day of fall, the wind and insecure light seemed to drive away the customers. So the tayu were anxious to venture forth and encourage customers to spend a night within the warmth of the guest house. And of course, the gods had to be remembered before work began, as Meiko always insisted. She refilled the two teacups on the altar and burnt fresh incense, said the prayers and bowed her head before the deity who was supposed to protect. She placed the two joss sticks solemnly at the feet of deity's throne – one each for her and Aiyo – only because Aiyo did not believe in these wooden statues.

Aiyo and Meiko were not the first tayu outdoors on this miserable night. Further down the street, a slim girl with a soft yellow robe of floating chrysanthemums was pacing her territory like an eagle over dead prey. She must belong to another of the guest houses, deduced Aiyo. Nonetheless, Aiyo herself began her tactical movements. Customers would be hard to find tonight.

But across the road at the mysterious tea houses, there were no geisha soliciting for men. The geisha were beyond such acts of peddling and begging. Once a while, a geisha would peer through the curtained doorframe, critical of the tayu reputed to be poaching their men.

Curses on them, swore Aiyo, for the umpteenth time. She disliked geisha, from the days of her dolly sisters to their haughty glances. But this was not the time to think of her sisters. There would be a time for that another day. Now she needed to look for customers. Her madam had been rather critical of her earnings recently.

The white screen door of the guest house slid open, and Aiyo had a second's notice to see Chie, her senior and bitter rival, step out with her juniors onto the street. If there was something worse than geisha arrogance or her madam's hypocrisy, it had to be Chie. She had trained Aiyo, or if that was called training, it was more brutal discipline, made even worse by the rumours circulating the guest house that Aiyo was of samurai blood. Aiyo had been free of her for several years now, and relished being able to act like a person and less a slave. Now she watched as Chie ignored her, and turned towards the figure of a potential customer.

Aiyo cupped her hands and exhaled a warm dose of her breath to keep warm. This was going to be a long and bitter evening.

In the fading shadows of people rushing home to be out of the cold, Aiyo moved quietly along the street just outside the porch of the guest house. The tiny alley beside the guest house seemed deserted too; Aiyo had intercepted men there before, those intent on taking a short cut but ending up getting waylaid off their duties with her. She never thought of it as a thing of attraction though; she never painted her face, because it reminded her of the overdone geisha. A touch to the eyebrows and a dash of saffron to her lips was enough. Men actually seemed to find such plainness attractive. Or was it her sharp features? Her mysterious eyes (as Meiko liked to call them)? Even Chie had once said she looked too dignified to be a tayu.

Speaking of Chie, Aiyo stole a glance at the porch. Chie was speaking to a merchant; by the looks of his garb and his plain dress, he was not a rich one. But did not Chie prefer the action to the money? Aiyo was not sorry for maligning her to the juniors. She deserved it.

Returning to her solitary patrol, she spotted an approaching figure coming from the alley. Instead of looking shy as tayu were supposed to act, she boldly crossed the man's path, and brushed the hem of her robes against his.

It worked. The man stopped, distracted by the svelte young lady alone in a place of ill repute on a bitter night. She may have looked out of place, but once she caught the man's attention, Aiyo believed nothing else mattered. He carried with him a bamboo scroll and husked ink bottles. A scholar or an artist?

"Why you out on the streets on such an ill night?" she asked him slyly. "Been busy with a piece of art, or has your studying made you forget the time?"

The man shifted uncomfortably, but his eyes were peering shyly at Aiyo's dark features. "Well… I was… yes, studying. At the college. Might I ask in return, Miss, what would you be doing out on such a night?"

"Why he is as much a gentleman as he is a scholar!" Aiyo remarked. This was genuine. She thought he deserved the flattery. She knew men who were a thousand times worse.

She chose to deliberately mistake the blush of his cheeks for the cold. "Your features are red with cold. Might I invite you to share the warmth of my guest house, my good sir?"

The man flashed a smile as thin as scroll of parchment, but one which Aiyo swore was written in sincerity. "If it pleases you to distract me," he said.

"I have never met a man who was shy before," Aiyo countered. That was a lie. But unlike her earlier days, she did not feel any guilt for betraying this young man's feelings. "Come, let us not stay out in the cold any longer. I will show you in."

She took the man's hand and led him towards the porch. She did not want to appear over enthusiastic, but this man was worth bringing into the disgusting world of the guest houses. As the light from within filtered through the obscure screen, she noticed the freshness of his face, the almost pearly complexion enough to rival some of the tayu and the scent of parchment on his clothes – she was this close to him. As they entered, it was custom to bow to the man and let him have the right of entrance. Aiyo glanced outside again and saw with a savage pleasure Chie's efforts as fruitless as bad calligraphy.

Inside the warmth of the guest house, the man sat cross-legged at a table of his choice. Nearby, other customers were freely making themselves comfortable with the women. For this act of serving simple food and sake was all just showmanship to the foreplay to take place in the guest rooms much later. Aiyo spied Meiko's customer, slipping his hand up her kimono, but her composure displayed her professionalism at the rites which had to be performed first.

Aiyo served the man a cup of sake and a bowl of hot soup which she had prepared. She put in effort to control her movements, putting up her best show as would a scholar when he recited the classics. His eyes were locked on her face, but she knew they were starting to impulsively venture to her ribbon in front of her kimono and what might lay behind it.

He drank the sake, as Aiyo gently put aside his parchments and bamboo scrolls and inks into a safe place where she could remember them in the morning. And as all tayu were trained, she ensured he would not just drink and leave: a show of neck, a loosening of her kimono, an adjusting of her ribbon – all the oldest tricks in the book make the men's destination as clear as possible. After the third glass of sake, taken while distracted, Aiyo noticed the man seemed a little drunk. Maybe he was not accustomed to so much sake: his exam concentration on her had deteriorated to incoherent attention.

But Aiyo knew, in spite of all her favour and liking for this gentleman, the night had only one ending, similar to a thousand ones before this day. She helped him to his feet. "I cannot wait," he gushed unexpectedly. Almost supporting him, she led him through the curtains and into the dark guest rooms filled with exotic scents and quick pleasure and subdued pain.

There was something she needed to do before she undid the ribbon of her robes. Even as the man undressed, she poured herself a glass of sake to the brim and drank it with one gulp. She let the fiery liquid roll in her throat, before taking a second glass and doing the same. Turning, she undid her ribbon; the lengths of it fell before her, and her work was now almost done – but one more glass of sake for posterity – she found that it made her lips and mouth immune to what would pass through it later on in the heated darkness.

* * *

'_The five worst maladies that afflict the female mind are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy and silliness. Without any doubt these five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that arise the inferiority of women to men. A women should cure them by self-inspection and self-reproach…'_

Aiyo awoke late, as it was the custom, so the man would have gotten dressed and left the guest house. In the porcelain bowl at the top of the bed she collected her fee, for all her trouble and work. Would she see him again? He looked decent enough, with his learned and scholarly air; if he came back, maybe she could persuade him to rescue her from this hell.

Then again, no man in the right state of mind would marry a tayu.

She got dressed, bound her hair and paced into the dining room. Her madam had instructed other the more junior tayu to clean up last night's mess, so the tables, mats and crockery as seemed to be in order. She wondered where Meiko was; she probably had a tough time with that pervert of hers. Or where was Chie? She hoped she had returned to the guest house without a man on her arm and earned herself a censure by her madam.

She sat by the tables, helping herself to the tea, freshly brewed by the junior tayu every morning, left on the table. There was a brush stroke of memory associated with this tea: before she reached puberty, she woke up early to cook and brew tea, and slept late after cleaning the guest house of the night's mess. The tea had the flavour of several years' hard work, all her years of suffering under her madam and Chie and other seniors now long gone. Some had become rich enough to bribe her madam into releasing them; others married. Some passed on diseased, heartbroken, suicidal.

My turn to leave this hell is long overdue, she thought to herself. Fifteen years in a brothel, every night serving a need which could never be met, being paid for an occupation which would never end. Fifteen years after being abandoned by that filthy pig of a brother! That snake who tricked her into coming here and leaving her home! In her long hours pf meditation she would not have understood the reasons as to why he threw her to the dogs. What purpose did it serve him?

"Girl, stop dreaming!"

A hand slapped her hard on the head. Curses! Her madam was awake too. Aiyo chose not to respond; talking back could be mistaken as an act of defiance. But instead, years of discipline had instructed her to continue calmly sipping the hot tea like a good, submissive young woman.

Why did not these old hags realise ignorance was the fiercest sign of rebellion?

Her madam stalked past her, entered the kitchen, screamed at the junior tayu who had probably dozed off while doing the dirty laundry, and lumbered back out. She was a tayu herself, a _very_ senior one, who had not married, left or died, and choosing instead to expend her lifetime abusing and ruining the lives of other girls. Aiyo hated to think she would end up like that.

"The man you brought in last night…"

Not again.

"The man you brought in last night," she began. "A scholar, very learned and smart. He knew that he had to tip me before he left."

Tip? He gave you a tip?

"He looked as though he had enjoyed himself very much. I'm glad, my girl, that I thought you to please a man well. See? Even a daughter of a samurai must learn how to submit to men in her bed."

Aiyo clenched her fingers round her cup. She was not going to get angry over this sinister provocation.

"From the very beginning you use to hate pleasing men. But, my dear, it is and will be your job, because you are a tayu and that is all in life you deserve. So tell me, girl? I have heard scholars and learned men are good in bed only…"

"Shut up!"  
A split second between her words and the appalling look on her madam's face: her cup lay in pieces in the corner, flung from the table while still half full of tea. Aiyo was on her feet, hands by her side, her face blackened, her faded saffron lips adding effect to the simmering wrath dissipating like steam from a kettle.

Her madam stood without words. But she immediately after advanced on Aiyo. But Aiyo was faster; as if she had been preparing for this moment, she snaked out of her grasp, overturning the table and the pot of tea in the process. Her madam leapt at her, furious.

"You will learn respect, you filthy viper!"

"Respect? What respect!"

But as Aiyo moved to sidestep her madam again, she was caught by the hem of her robes. She tripped, falling awkwardly on her side, and then she was caught by the hair.

"I will teach you respect, even if you have to die learning it!" she hissed.

Her madam dragged her to the foot of the altar, and forcing her to kneel roughly she uttered a short prayer, and reached for the stick by the altar used for discipline. Aiyo struggled savagely, and when she saw she could not escape by squirming her way out, she cupped both her fists and smashed them into her madam's nearest knee, almost hearing the crunch of a fractured bone and the immediate point of her quick escape.

"Ahhh!"

And she dashed away, her robes falling down all over her, until she reached her quarters and slammed the screen shut. The other tayu, still rousing from sleep, gaped at her.

Breathless, she panted, dressing herself modestly.

Signs of open disrespect were common in the guest house. Chie had once publicly shouted at her madam, but was beaten painfully with the stick afterwards till she cried, even though Aiyo enjoyed it. That stick by the altar was a symbol of control, a force of power and discipline only to be used by the madam. Aiyo had been beaten a hundred times before, but she had never fought back and attacked her madam. Surely this would warrant more punishment.

She panted again, this time hearing her madam pacing somewhere outside.

_She was sick of this place, of this culture, of her madam_. She could try running away; the thought had been on her mind many times. But where could she go? Where was that bastard brother of hers who had kept telling her to prepared? For what? _For what?_

The other tayu avoided her, making her wish all the more Meiko was around. Aiyo sat down, donning properly her robes and closing her eyes to relax herself. But there was no peace. All she could think of was her brother's figure walking away on a cold fall night and a subversive voice like rain distilling in her thoughts.

_'We are told it was the custom of the ancients on the birth of a female child to let it lie on the floor for the space of three days. Even in this may be seen the likening of man to Heaven and of woman to Earth; and the custom should teach a woman show necessary it is for her in everything to yield to her husband the first, and to be herself content with the second, place…_

_…If a woman act thus, her conjugal relations cannot be but harmonious and lasting, and her household a scene of peace and concord.'

* * *

_

**Notes:**

_It wasn't easy writing this chapter. My main purpose was to show dehumanization, and at the same time attempt to show Eboshi's resolve in the hardship. The transition between Chapters 3 & 4 isn't very smooth, to my opinion, so that this chapter (especially at the end) seemed very brief and unrealistic. But I need feedback on how you thought about it. _

_The excerpts scattered through the chapter are from the Onna Daigaku, argued to be the work of the scholar Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714). Translated, it literally means_ "The Whole Duty of Women"_. Such instructions were part of the _terakoya, _temple education for the common people of the day. _

_Again, much of the information comes from The Way of the Samurai, by Richard Storry & Werner Foreman._

_(11.03.06)_


	5. Leper's Blessing

**5. Leper's Blessing**

How her madam lived with twenty girls with rebellious streaks like her Aiyo never knew. But she hated her madam for keeping them all under control.

In the days following her fight with her madam, an atmosphere of cloudy silence hung over Aiyo and everyone else. Everyone was glad someone stood up to that old hag; but they despised Aiyo's defiance and stuck up-ness. So what if she was a samurai's daughter (or was she?), because she did not have the right to act like a mistress in her little kingdom anyway. Aiyo could sense the hostility through the floorboards and the tatami. And so for the first time in a long time, she considered escape. But the difficulty remained in where she could go. The lack of any escape route, of any way out of the tayu quarter of Shimabara, felt miserable.

Several days after the confrontation, as the girls made their preparations for another evening, Aiyo and Meiko waited by the altar with the same numbing ritual which Aiyo was beginning to loathe. As usual, when it was their turn, Meiko lit the joss sticks and muttered the same devotion, while Aiyo watched from a distance. About then, she felt the unnerving sense someone had moved in behind her.

Aiyo snapped around, find herself almost face to face with Chie.

"What the hell are you looking at?" she spat at her defiantly.

"So you think you are the emperor's daughter, don't you? You think just because you're a dead samurai's spawn…"

Aiyo reacted without thinking. She took one step forward, the gap of contention between then narrowing, nearly knocking Chie off her feet in the process. All the girls around them turned to witness the fight brewing. Now finally something exciting before work!

"You have a problem with me?" Aiyo warned, her fists, clenched, boy-like in the flex they produced on her arms.

Chie could only muster the same line she had been using for years to threaten her juniors: "Watch out. You watch out."

As both rival and friend waited along the streets later, Aiyo wandered through the smaller back-alleys around the guest house again. The lanes were empty and endless, leading away from the guest house to other perhaps more lewd sections of the pleasure quarters, eventually opening out to the main street in Kyoto, the greatest city under heaven. She could run away – now, and just slip away with her madam blind and deaf and mute to her disappearance. But like an invisible leash, something was tugging onto her neck and waist, preventing her from making the most crucial act of rebellion.

Tonight the streets, it appeared to her, were teeming with customers. Merchants, labourers and other men of doubtful nature flirted openly with the girls; in the lantern-splash of light from the guest houses, the faces of the girls, white (and in Chie's case, horribly overdone) and mockingly beautiful, clashed with the deep, hollowed faces of these men.

As they mingled with the girls, Aiyo kept her distance. She did not want to jeopardize Meiko's chances with that dashing young merchant, who looked more boy than man. But more than anything, she did not have the mood.

"There's no such thing as mood in this business," Meiko would tell her. But, really, today she was out of feeling, out of touch. Somehow, tonight she was not willing to go through the effort of searching for a customer, the tireless flirting later and finally the painful charade of seduction she had to perform. Was this a sign that she was getting a bit too old with this job? The thought threw itself into Aiyo's mind but was gone shortly after as one of the men caught her eye.

He looked all right. "Miss, how are you this evening?" he asked her.

She looked at the man; in a quick glance, she took him in: the acceptably-broad frame, the badly shaven chin and the similar gaze brooding in his eyes. He was studying her too. Not a pervert: an opportunist. In the background, Meiko pouted as the young man stroked the exposed flash of neck she allowed herself to bear. But this man was bearing down on her.

"The evening sky is full of clouds, but within the heart there is rain," she whispered, quoting a line from a poem she learnt long ago. But her mind was furiously thinking how to escape this.

The man put on a smile to mask his confusion; emboldened by his friend's success with Meiko, he moved in towards Aiyo. Right now, she was really uncertain about him. Normally, she had no problem handling men, but Meiko had set the standard, yet she did not want anything to happen to her outside of the guest house that was improper. As he neared again, she squirmed away, her cheek dashing against the man's stubble.

Something seemed amiss tonight. Like back there in the alley, the tiredness she seemed to feel and now the over-enthusiastic advances of this man, Aiyo could feel uncomfortable, almost claustrophobic. The man seemed to feel this to: he paused, but when Aiyo did not say anything, he continued. Aiyo, her head down, could feel his fingers pulling at the ribbon in front of her robes…

"No, not tonight."

She pushed him away roughly and fled towards the guest house, leaving the man, shocked in the half- light of the guest house.

"Since when did they get uncomfortable with men?" he muttered openly. "What's this place coming to?"

Aiyo did not hear the comments. She entered the guest house, shutting the screen door so hastily that the girls and their customers all gave her a brief stare. Catching her breath, she refastened her ribbon, the dirty feeling of being violated still hovering over her. Breathlessly, she slipped past the pair of Meiko and her young man making out at one of the tables into the kitchen.

_Mistake_. She found herself staring into the furrowed face of her madam disciplining one of her juniors. She had o time to take in the scene: the stick in her madam's hand, the undone hair of the girl strewn across her face, her topless frame on the floor and the bruises like the dead dregs of a teacup swirled on her back.

"What are you doing in my kitchen without a man?" her madam demanded.

Aiyo had her eyes on her madam's stick and an unwashed tea set by the stove.

"I – I'm not going to look for a man tonight," she was actually amazed at the boldness of that phrase, knowing the reaction it would fire in her madam.

There was no moment for words, because as soon as those rebellious words had reached the other end of the room, her madam rushed forward. Aiyo, instinct taking over, dragged the tea set from its restive position and flung it across at the impending stick. A mash of tea cups and a howl of pain; it came from Aiyo, and again she felt the stick bite into her shoulder. Her madam, uncertain on her feet but with the flexibility of a cat in the air, had parried Aiyo's defensive manouvere, powering her way through. Completely under siege now, Aiyo saw her junior shirk away with a bitter smile, before a blow forced her to defend herself.

* * *

"Was that deliberate?"

Making sure her basket was firmly hooked onto her shoulder, Aiyo gently closed the screen door of the guest house, Meiko having ventured forth before her. Now, her pride and dignity wounded badly last night, she still had to deal with Meiko's frankness.

"Was that on purpose? You refused that man and went right into the kitchen to tell madam about it?" she asked her. "You should know better than that."

Aiyo did not reply. Instead, she made sure her robes were firmly pulled over her left arm: she did not want anyone to notice the splotches of bruising from last night. Her shoulder hurt and her madam had dealt several powerful blows to her back as well, but in her effort to defend herself, her arms had taken the brunt of the blows. No one would take note of her rebellion when they went to the marketplace, where they did not look too kindly on girls who could think for themselves.

"Aiyo. Can you answer me?"

"Yes, yes. Whatever."

Aiyo and Meiko walked through the alleys, a conveniently uneasy understanding between them: Meiko knew Aiyo's dislike of the guest house but she did not know how to manage it. And Aiyo knew that Meiko knew, and Meiko knew that she knew – and so forth.

Crossing the filthy back-alleys to the market, the merchants gawked at them, and Aiyo pulled her robes close. They had taken this path almost every day, through the craftsmen and the troop of beggars and monks outside their shops. They begged but dared not press close to them; it had been part of their bizarre daily ritual Aiyo and Meiko would only consent to their requests on the return trip. But like everything she felt after her open rebellion against her madam, Aiyo felt out of place, out of sync with the setting, like a flowering tree in winter.

At the market, they crowded with the other ladies – housewives, geishas, maids from richer households, merchant's wives – to bid for the most recent catch the fishermen brought in from the nearest river or port. Meiko was preparing soba today, so she left Aiyo to bid for the better fish. As it was her habit, Aiyo never huddled in the thick of the crowd, but would stay closest to the merchant who had brought in the catch.

"Fifteen!"

"Are you blind? Twenty!"

"Thirty-five!"

"How much for this?"

The ladies, like overexcited seagulls on a wave of feeding, squabbled over the prize catch. Aiyo, unnoticed, swept over their gathering to the other produce the fisherman had lain out. When she had first come to the market, her madam had taught her how to bid and haggle and make the best use of the bronze and silver talents which she had. But Aiyo had learnt not to heed that advice. Why buy the best catch for lust-driven men? Why feed the people whom she most despised with the best meats? Aiyo reasoned differently; she found herself staring at the catch which was already half the morning old.

Like bodies waiting for burial, she examined the neglects; Meiko had said she had an eye for the most tender meats, the most succulent fish, the leafiest vegetables. Aiyo was not much of a cook, but they taught her that there were always two levels of seduction: the sensory and sensual. She flipped over the jaw-locked fish and the sweating shellfish in the same persistent routine of a thousand visits to the market before her same pre-seduction routine.

Aiyo picked a metre-long tuna fish; she noticed bluntly where the spear had gone through its gills, the brute force of necessity that had the same effect on her bruised arm.

She sorted out the meats she required. She preferred to be known not as the tayu-who-could-pick-out-the-better-foods, but as the shrewd-girl-who-could-strike-a-good-bargain-without-haggle kind.

She made sure she waited – it took just a moment – till she caught the fisherman's eye, before proclaiming: "fifty the lot."

He agreed, not out of admiration from her charms, but more out of desperation. Aiyo had learnt to go straight to the point, especially with merchants burdened by jumping prices made by jumping women. He packed them for her too, with straw and hay. Aiyo, although triumphant, did not feel any better today. She could only stare at the mute yell of that piece of tuna, its mouth stiff and pathetic.

"Fish again?" Meiko looked at her purchase. "You don't know how to spoil your customers, Aiyo."

"Why spoil them when you can poison them?" she responded with a sincere look of scheming. Meiko knew it was another moody Aiyo joke.

They edged their way past the crowd, still as hectic as a shoal of fish swept up in a typhoon.

Their short walk back to the guest house was made in silence.

Then Meiko interrupted: "Aiyo, I want you to tell me that you're not going to do anything stupid tonight."

"Me? Stupid? Since when was not letting a man use you stupid?"

Meiko sighed: "It's the kind of life we've been fated to live, so I don't go trying to escape it. Especially when madam raised me since I was so young. It's no use fighting fate."

"But if you could…escape, you would, right?" Aiyo shot back with a challenge behind the question.

"If you put it like that, then – yes."

Aiyo hid a grin behind her face. "Good. All I needed to hear from you."

As it was their grinding, marketplace routine, they took the path through the workshops and merchants' shops which they had passed before. It did not bother anyone that the two of them were miserably out of place, their quiet and elegant manner clashed with the gnaw of tools and flying sawdust, with the queues of beggars and monks who waited for goodwill outside these places. Sometimes Aiyo could not tell the difference between the beggars and the begging holy men.

In fact, one of them was approaching them right now: a wasted thin man with robes like an old tablecloth, with another behind him. He looked dazed, so much so that he led his companion by an arm halfway in the air.

Aiyo casually emptied several bronze talents into his wooden bowl. They made a foul, impoverished sound. The monk bowed. Aiyo stared at the man he was leading.

"What's wrong with him?" Meiko seemed to ask on her behalf. The monk's companion had frayed, brown rags for a face, a slit for his mouth, and his movements were awkwardly childlike.

"He is cursed by the earth and the land."

The man with the rag head muttered "Thank you. Bless you."

"You must take good care of him. Curse or no curse, you must change his rags," Aiyo instructed. Even though she was beginning to catch the stink of the unlikely couple.

"Bless you," the rag head man said again.

It was a shorter, more uneventful trip to the guest house from the beggars' alley. Those two really did give off such an unearthly stench. But although she would not want to think too much about it, she was sure the rag head man was trying to see through the rags at her.

* * *

Through the afternoon, Aiyo spent her quiet time in the kitchen, diligently slicing and preparing the dishes for the later part of the evening. A firm determination had been building up in her, a desire to escape, no matter how vague it seemed. Her hushed commitment to her work now seemed like an apparent calm before an earthquake; inside she was trembling with a confident hope to get out of the invisible wall of the guest house.

The piece of tuna she cut artistically into smaller chunks which would go well with soup; she made sure the miso was cloudy and burning with flavour; the shellfish she drowned in boiling water, allowing the rich seafood stock to accompany the necessary miso bowl. It all appeared perfect.

Then Aiyo caught sight of that forlorn, soundless fish head staring at her.

Later she tied her _obi_ as she had always did. Tonight, to suit the wintry season, she would be wearing robes of a softer tone, its designs landscaped like that of a deep forest in winter, with a lofty mountain showing. Meiko helped her pull her hair into a fantastic bun; she plainly refused any make-up or saffron. If she was going to wish for an escape from the severe tedium of this trash existence, perhaps tonight would guide her in that choice. Gentleman or boor? Kisses over dinner or a show of skin? Seduce a man or finally walk away into the alley?

Then when they were to look for customers, Aiyo thought she had forgotten something: she gestured at Meiko impatiently till she finished the ceremonial prayers, before following her out.

It was colder tonight, so Aiyo had an excuse to pull her robes over her arms, enfolding her lithe frame tightly as the night forced the breath out from her. Meiko, without even uttering a word, had begun to pace, girlishly tempting passersby on the street. A man was eyeing her. Aiyo took the street in eyeshot; not many people out tonight, just a man standing in the shadow of the nearby teahouse, several merchants closing shop and the occasional lonely man walking southwards like a wolf in the countryside.

As it was with other nights, it was a man who approached Aiyo. She had wandered out further up the street and in the distancing light of the guest house he caressed her arm. She spun around: he was the same man from the night before. His ruddy face stung red in the cold of this pre-winter night, looking somehow more intimidating without his younger friend.

"Miss, how are you this evening?" he asked, coaxing.

She decided to put in some effort: "Cold. Tonight there are really no stars up above."

She could see the man frown. "You like poetry and riddles, do you? I'm not a scholar. I work at the opposite end of this road. You can visit me if you don't run off tonight."

Aiyo actually found it funny, but at the same time she actually remembered the scholar from the other night. Right now she was not thinking of the liberating alley which the man was obstructing or the actions she would require to undertake later; instead, her mind was, like so many times in her childhood, muddled, delaying time, waiting for something to happen.

But the man cut to the point with a single sentence: "Since it's so cold outside, why don't you invite me into your house as your guest for an evening meal?"

Her actions swimming in inertia, she managed a very jaded fixed smile, but again she felt the man pulling on the hem of her robes, his fingers straightening her ribbon.

"Good evening."

Aiyo almost jumped. Another man had approached them from behind – not another customer! Too dark to tell his face, she tried to turn away. She hated these times, when two men would argue over her and either they would create a scene or bargain their time with her, and in the end she would have to sleep with both. The first man, however, stopped her by her arm; the bruise on her arm showed as the robe fell back. She hid it shamefully out of view.

"And good evening to you too. But no one gave you permission to enter our conversation. So get lost," his tone was aggressive and territorial.

The other man did not respond, but stirred strangely. Then spoke: "That's no way to treat a lady. And that's no way to be polite."

Sensing a fight, Aiyo freed herself from the man's grip, and started to make for the guest house. So much for making a decision tonight: not with all this ruckus those two were going to create. She ran back, towards the light where tayu and man mingled without hostility or competition. She tried to signal to Meiko with a look of panic, but she was busy with another man. Almost up to the porch, the night seemed to freeze when she felt a hand seize hers.

"What's the rush?" the man from the first encounter smirked at her. "Can't wait to invite me in?"

Again Aiyo forced a smile, but the other man had caught up with them. His face finally coming into the light, there seemed something raw and unrelenting in his pursuit of her.

"If you touch her again, I'm going to kill you," he said, almost through clenched teeth.

Both Aiyo and the man stared at the intruder with a fresh, enlightened fear at his chilly intimidation. The man hurried her into the guest house, the warmth of the stove and steaming charcoal enveloping them. Her madam was there welcoming them in her high false voice; Chie was entertaining a man – Aiyo's mind was fighting like a fish in a bucket; how could she settle this and avoid any fighting? How could she be done with this persistent customer and the threatening intruder?

And over all of this, what was all this telling her?

"Come on," the man edged rudely past her madam into the guest house. Desperate to get away from the cold or his stalker or both, he pinned his arm under Aiyo's. In his vice grip, he caught hold of the bruises which had only this morning stopped throbbing. His dragging her along forced their presence back into Aiyo's mind.

Feeling the pain in her arm, she pushed him away. "Let me go!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you!"

The intruder made one stride, drew a massive blade and stuck it through him, exactly the way Aiyo would have stuck a hairpin in her hair.

Instead of resisting or cursing, the man, whom moments earlier was brashly forceful, did not struggle. His eyes diminished, and his face, like an empty soup bowl, was wiped clean by the strike. Her madam screamed, the girls stared dumbly in shock, the other customers hurriedly got to their feet – but this intruder (now killer) was blocking the door.

"That's going to happen to anyone who touches her," he declared, his blade shining with a touch of blood. The corpse of the man slumped to the floor.

And Aiyo, who was attempting to measure the scale of what was going on, could just look at the blood streaming to her feet, unconsciously aware there had been only one other time she been forced to take in the awfulness of such a scene.

Then the killer looked to her. "Get your things, Aiyo. We're going."

She was now as much as blank as she was confused. "Who are you?"

He was impatient. "I'm not here to stand around and make a scene. Get your things and let's get out of here."

She was probably too mute and blind to say anything. But, she complied anyway. Within minutes, she had packed her robes, her silver and bronze talents and her dagger into a bundle. In the awesome peace of the guest house, she numbly walked across to the door where her brother was waiting.

* * *

**Notes:**

_Thank you everyone for all your great reviews: **Soapfiction, Animechic08, TheUniverseBeyond, ThebigW, waterygrave & Eisuke** . I've been delayed because of work as usual: I've just finished a hectic one week at the academy undergoing my IDC course. Now that all the project presentations and coursework is over, not only can I continue this where I left off, but I'm also on track to get my sergeant promotion I've been waiting for._

_The only problem I feel about this chapter is the title I was "forced" to choose. The action in the chapter is really more or less confined to the last bit, where (not so surprisingly, I admit), Aiyo's brother returns. This chapter is more transitional, so please bear with me._

_(Soapfiction: you're right about the origins of the tayu. I apologise that this is the only part of my story where I'm historically inaccurate. I slipped up on my research here. Thanks for reminding me!) _

_(11.03.06)_


	6. Family Business

**6. Family Business**

"What's your problem now?"

Aiyo watched as Hiojo flashed his blade threateningly in front of her madam, who for her sake hoped was not so stupid as to challenge him. The other tayu and their male customers sat unmoving in their seats, stuck like a burnt piece of meat in a pan. And Meiko was still outside, oblivious to the drama inside.

But Aiyo moved with a measured pace, hiding any of the tense anxiety or the surprise at her long-lost brother finally showing up at the guest house. When she was finally at the door with all her possessions in a hastily wrapped bundle, the man slumped on the wall felt alive only one deep breath ago.

"I thought I told you to take care of her?" Hiojo demanded of her madam. Aiyo could not prevent a high tide of satisfaction from watching the fear wash across her madam's face as he approached her with his blade. "Did that mean turning her into one of your blind dolls?"

Aiyo was halfway out the door when she spotted her madam actually tearing from fear, pitifully similar to when she herself begged for mercy at her first beating. It was enough revenge for one night – Aiyo forced herself not to smile, only because her rash brother had speared an innocent man. Right now, her thoughts were in a mess, both pleased yet confused at the same time; she was unsure as to whether she wanted her brother, now the weapon of her defiance, to spear her madam as well.

"Aiyo! What's going on?"

Meiko rushed up to her, immediately noticing the bundle she was holding in her arms like a new baby.

"I've been liberated," Aiyo smiled, "because my brother has returned. Remember what I told you about him?"

Meiko's face bore an impression frozen in between astonishment and alarm. Yet Aiyo grabbed her and buried her in a hug. Hiojo by then had already closed the sliding door shut, and gesturing Aiyo to follow him.

"Take care of yourself now," Meiko told her, "and if you can visit, you're always welcome."

I'll miss you my friend, thought Aiyo. But this place can burn in hell.

* * *

In the abrupt silence which had replaced their initial uncertainty of being reunited, a strange sibling-only atmosphere dominated the limited communication between them. Maybe it was because Hiojo was older but had always been the quieter one; or maybe it was because Aiyo was the younger of the pair but was always full of questions; or maybe it was as simple as the serious complication which came with Hiojo pulling his blade through a man and Aiyo witnessing it. But neither believed any catching up was required.

Instead, Aiyo was almost screaming with questions. As they distanced themselves from the guest house, so did her own questions and thoughts begin to breed within her, like a bad anticlimax after a moment of pure thrill. Her brother's silence did not help answer the most important issue of all: why had he been gone all these years? That subject alone seemed impossible to fathom, as it did not justify his reappearance, she believed. And where were they going?

They had walked as far as the outskirts when Hiojo suddenly stopped. He stared down the stone path which would eventually lead eastwards of the capital and through to the mysterious beyond which Aiyo could not yet understand. Distracted in getting his directions, he did not seem to care one jot that Aiyo had been weary carrying her bundle of possessions. And so, Aiyo saw an opportunity.

While her brother took his bearings, she seized his blade from its sheath.

And he reacted exactly the way she predicted he would: with an overconfident indifference.

"You don't know how to use that. Put it away before you hurt yourself," he chided.

Aiyo was unsteady with the blade in her hands, the first real weapon after the small dagger lost somewhere in her bundle. But she was firm enough draw the point of it down within a thread's breadth of her brother's chest.

"There are some things which need to be explained here before we take another step," Aiyo began slowly. "Please answer me truthfully, because it would be a waste to kill you."

Hiojo's trademark apathy betrayed a short laugh. But he humoured her.

"All right, have it your way. What do you want to know?"

Where to even start? The questions were pouring out of her head like morning sunlight through the branches of a willow tree. She organised herself, the grip on the blade resolute, asking the most burning question: "Why did you leave me at the guest house?"

To her surprise, her brother broke into a sharp grin.

"You really want to know the answer to that?" he continued his inane grinning, which made Aiyo wonder if maybe after all those years it was he who had turned insane. "I brought you to the guest house to protect you."

Aiyo responded in incredulous confusion. "Protect me? You turned me into a prostitute to protect me? Are you trying to make me laugh?"

"You'll understand when we reach Nara. So I ask that you do not delay our…"

Aiyo pushed the blade in until she could feel the Hiojo's chest resisting the token strength she was using. "Be quiet! You sell me into fifteen years of slavery and you claim you were trying to protect me! And through those years you didn't even bother to come to rescue or see me! And now you show up without any reason or any explanation… and you expect me to follow you just like that?"

Hiojo could not mask the mild pain in his face, where the blade had punctured his robes and skin, but still he answered: "Yes, I expected a reaction with more gratitude."

"Then I apologise for disappointing you."

"Listen to me, Aiyo. There are reasons for everything I do. From the moment we stepped out of our house, to me leaving you at the guest house, and even now as we go to Nara… I'm not trying to hide anything from you," he addressed her like she remembered his stories when she was little, "I'm trying to keep you from getting hurt."

"Hurt? What could possibly want to hurt me?"

"You're the daughter of a samurai," said Hiojo a matter-of-factly. "There're a lot of people who do not like that."

"You and your samurai nonsense again," Aiyo shot back.

Aiyo lowered the blade, releasing her effort on the weapon slowly. Hiojo, on the other hand, judt waited, lest anymore pent-up frustration from his sister would snap the blade back into position. Aiyo still thought her questions and been scratched out and marked with even more gruesome mysteries; her dissatisfaction, Hiojo could not yet see, showed in her indecision, as the weapon hung stoic in her hands, not in use but still serving a purpose. In this open-ended moodiness, it took some time for Aiyo to realise something else.

"We're going to Nara? As in the temple there – right?"

Hiojo gave a cautious grin at her curiosity. "The further away from the capital we are, the safer we'll be. I have friends at Nara."

Aiyo, again, felt the sting of Hiojo's mystic riddles on safety and protection: "Why do you keep insisting that we need safety? I'm not running from anyone."

"Well good for you. Because, like it or not, there're a lot of people out there who would like me dead."

* * *

In some distant past, Aiyo could remember herself on horse-drawn carriage, headed towards Nara, being pulled by the same single horse with a its deep shade of chestnut, with her brother at the helm and she sitting right beside him listening to his wild ideas of big battles far away in the east with the furthest limits of her imagination.

So when Aiyo found herself, without the carriage, without her respectable six-year old curiosity (now replaced by a disturbing, unfulfilled question), without the admiration she had for her bundling, rigid-samurai brother, without any sure sense of things, she could not help feeling nostalgic that the only similarity was her sitting right beside him listening to his wild ideas of big battles far away in the east with the furthest limits of her imagination.

Not because she wanted to, she just needed to know what was going on. She felt just like that little, disgusting, innocent six-year old; in her ignorance she could even think in that blindly obscure mind, but she swore she was not going to regress to such a stage anymore. She needed to know, not simply because of blunt, stupid curiosity, but she had to be on her guard. Fifteen years in a guest house had forced that out of her.

And also because Hiojo seemed capable of anything right now.

Whether he spoke the truth with exaggeration, or exaggeration with the truth, she could not possibly know, but his language was that of a hardened warrior, bitter with lost conflicts, smug over the ones he had won. After leaving Aiyo had the guest house, he had (as he repeatedly claimed) lived in terrible poverty for years, but deep in training, perfecting his skills in a underground world of endless drifting, living off the land and fighting – the life of any individual _ronin_ without any master. With Father's failure to serve his lord and master, Hiojo felt unworthy to return to the Asano household to be reinstated in service, shattering a so-called unbroken line of sons from the Eboshi family who grew up to serve under the great Lord Asano.

So why not just give up?

Because my love for my lord and master, and the desire for revenge is a strong addiction, Hiojo had claimed.

As the dialogue between the two siblings grew more intense, Aiyo noticed how dubious and unsettling certain parts of her brother's self-history must have been. He swung within his storytelling and within his moods. He had fought battles against the man he perceived to be Father's murderer, a man of the Kamakura family, a Seiya Kamakura. The battles between the Asano and Kamakura had waged for several years before, both sides, completely sucked dry of men and iron and energy, called for an unofficial truce. The land north of Nara had been wasted: a hundred villages burned, a thousand villagers and peasants with them, and countless nobles and lords murdered out of treason, treachery and pure blind hatred.

"Such is the beauty of war, eh?" went Hiojo with an annoying pecking sound Aiyo had, in the few hours of his storytelling, learnt to associate with his boasting.

He had endured everything – from the harrowing frontlines as a paid samurai to fight for the careless causes of luckless landlords, to the fiercely skilled conflicts between the two quarreling families – he had fought and become the perfect samurai, the unfortunate one without a master, a father and a family. He drew his blade, causing Aiyo to jump at the speed of his hostile behaviour. It was the same Eboshi family blade, the same one he had worn at the ceremony all those years back and the same sword which he had used to skewer that man in the guest house. My closest friend, Hiojo beamed proudly, he has been with me through many sufferings.

This scar here, he showed Aiyo a hideous line across his ribs to the rise of his spine, my closest to my doom. He told Aiyo how he had turned on the landlord who had hired him, stealing food and weapons in the process, and how he had been hunted down and thrashed till he was sure he would never walk or fight again. The bleeding shredding skin down his back had hurt as if he had swallowed a cauldron of hot water. But he survived, long enough to crawl into the temple at Nara to be nursed back to recovery by the friends he had there.

Friends? Did she know any of them?

No, replied Hiojo. It had taken a long time for him to gain their trust. The people at the great temple at Nara were, astonishingly, loyal supporters of the Asano family, and had treated him as any other beggar until they learnt he was an Eboshi, also a famous family line of retainers. (At this moment, Hiojo appeared to shudder under the possibility that if he had went into a house loyal to Kamakura, he would not live to savour this reunion). They had trained him after he recovered, introduced him to the other factions loyal to the Asanos and accepted him into their ranks.

So he had come all the way to the now. The two rival houses had begun their conflicts anew, and Hiojo was the proud vanguard of the armed monks from the great temple at Nara, who were controlled by Lord Sesuke Asano, the younger son of the great Lord Asano, the master of the Thousand Samurai. In consolidating allies for the upcoming war, they had advised him to retrieve Aiyo from the guest house.

Retrieve me? What do I have to do with all this?

Patience, my dear sister, Hiojo chided her. His coolness and slick skill for evading direct questions had taunted Aiyo through the whole journey. She did not know what was stopping her from jumping off the cart and walking back to the capital. _Maybe it was the fact that she had nowhere to go_.

A gladdened monologue followed, with Hiojo randomly reciting bits and pieces of his horribly, painfully, realistically vivid sufferings: the struggle to find his faith in a chaotic world, being looked down upon and so forth. Aiyo, in her observations, realised her brother loved to stress that he had done all this _by himself_; he _alone_, the _sole_ male heir of the Eboshi family, had endured and lived through all the sufferings _all by himself_, and that no one should question _his _terrible determinationwith which had brought _himself_ through the years of finding meaning, a meaning which _only_ he treasured. He and, of course, the great Lord Asano.

Aiyo felt the rotten sting of hyperbole when Hiojo finally turned in and fell silent.

They had traveled through the day and by the time Hiojo ended, Aiyo herself was starting to yawn at the fatigue of the long trip. Evening was upon them, with the road to Nara now dotted with villagers and merchants rushing to return home. With a grateful thought of freedom, Aiyo recalled that this time, at the guest house, she would have been preparing herself for the night. Instead, she was now heading to Nara with a possibly demented sword-wielding brother. She could stand that.

It was dead in the middle of the night when they reached Nara, yet two solitary torches burned at the entrance of the path leading to the great temple. The sentries stiffened as the cart approached, peering into the night so dark it looked as if the horse had pulled its cart and wandered all the way to the entrance by itself.

"State your name and your business here!" the sentry growled.

"Eboshi, my good brother," Hiojo said gently, though Aiyo could detect the weariness in his voice. "I have returned from my mission."

The two sentries stiffened again, this time into a ceremonial salute. Then let the cart pass.

Aiyo, drugged and sleepy to the point of stupour, followed her brother past the imposing wooden gate and the two massive guardians of the temple, into the temple itself. She felt light, almost unable to open her eyes – Hiojo was holding her hand, like he was dragging her along to keep up – there was room of armed men, and here Hiojo and her bowed (or did she fall? She was not very sure) – they all greeted him like an old friend – then Hiojo stepped aside, and now all eyes were upon her – she was used to being scrutinized by men, so she let her tiredness take over instead of getting alarmed – they were all nodding and saying something – "we'll see more to this in the morning" – "now you better get some sleep after your long journey" – and she was ushered from the room – then the lights went out.

Then followed others, till only two torches were left burning at the path leading to the great temple at Nara.

* * *

**Notes:**

_I'd like to say some stuff to these people – TheUniverseBeyond, Moro, soapfiction, ThebigW & Animechic08 (& Eisuke) – I'm really grateful for your comments, you're the regular ones giving the reviews. Sometimes I'm writing and when I come online to read what you've said, you make me think about the way things are written and slowly you guys influence how I try my to get the message across to you._

_The challenge here is threefold: get the message to the reader, keep the story faithful to the movie & stay true to my literature roots. A big thank you for helping me meet all three._

_And: I got the promotion. **There's a new sergeant in the unit now.** But: 3 whole Sundays burned training my unit's reservists for shooting as an afterthought(Sunday afternoons are my prime writing time sial)._

_(01.05.06)_


	7. Shrines and Warriors

**7. Shrines and Warriors**

******  
**

It is often said that the great temple in Nara did not come up by meticulous human design or misinterpreted human understanding. From the carvings into its iron gates, to the muscle of wood which holds it greatest shrine, to its serenely restive ponds of contemplation, to the immense spread of weathered and decaying grave monuments sunk like needles into the hill country beyond the temple confines – the great temple (or Eatern Great Temple, Todaiji, as the men of Nara call it) was not the work of men's hands, but the intricate, profound inspiration of the Buddha Vairocana himself.

His own stone-faced, blankly-lit statue rests in the greatest shrine. Visitors to the shrine say the stained, smudged bronze is a poor replica of the deity. Yet they insist the shrine is sitting on sacred ground, almost as if great mystical gardens offering refreshment and peace of mind spread out from beneath the shrine, in the terrain unseen only to the eyes of the spiritually discerning. In these gardens, the mazes are hedges of golden and silver trees bearing sacred lotus fruit as pink and healthy as a newborn's skin. Right at the foot of the throne where the stone-faced, blankly-lit, smeared-bronze Buddha sits, is the apex of the spiritual garden: a emerald pool lined with the most glittering crystal sand, flanked with lotus plants and flowers, directing the faithful to the one open spot under the quiet, undisturbed gaze of the Daibutsu (the great Buddha), where one may perform his admissions, and receive full absolution in the form of a calming peace of mind, which is the secular equivalent of nothing which exists in the carnal sin of the Floating World.

It is also told abroad that the unrepentant and the uninitiated will not be able to experience this joyous, divine felicity. Instead of being privileged tourists to a land which beggars all explanation, they will merely see the dimness of the shrine, whose lourves are always partially shut (echoing the darkness of their own understanding and soul). They will only see the stone-faced statue as emotionless and unfulfilling after seven centuries of battering by the wind, frost, rain, fire, earthquakes and the loathsome Tiara clan, who destroyed the temple in battle with their Minatomo enemies. They will see but the flaking bronze and its uncomely lustre, without any hint of pleasure or enjoyment in the subtle serenity of the emerald pond of absolutions underneath the Buddha's central gaze.

For such a restful abode for a spiritual deity, it did seem ironic the pathway towards the shrine, through the majestic wooden hulk of the temple's east gate, was watched by the massive, fearsome forms of two heavenly warriors, or _Nio_. Their weapons struck out at the unwelcome passing underneath their muscular frames and their vengeful, threatening stares loom over any warrior foolish enough to taunt them; as tall as the gate's ceiling, they dwarf all who pass through the gate where they have stood sentry for seasons and years. And all who see them willingly regard them with the reverence due as heavenly warriors protecting the heavens' regent dwelling on the earth.

Outside the gate, in the broad stone path which would be filled with throngs of pilgrims and devotees the summer, deer pace solemnly. It would require great faith to embark on a pilgrimage to the great temple in the onset of winter, and even greater devotion especially now (for it was known throughout Nara that since the wars between the houses of Asano and Kamakura came from the east, the armed monks of the temple had been partial to the Asanos, who had promised them in turn, renovations for the crumbling shrines). Such great assurance would only be seen on rare days, with lone men coming in from the cities, warily regarding the two heavenly sentries, carefully approaching the shrine and mutely burning incense against the pall of light snow which had begun to smother the landscape.

Even in the winter, the deer never roamed far from the temple ground. The barren, wasted countryside lay north of the temple, and the sprawling city of Nara rested in the hills to the south east, a pale shadow of its former glory during the days of Heian rule. It had been believed for some time now the deer were messengers from the gods, if not why not would they choose the temple grounds to graze and its gardens to calve? During these few lean weeks of winter, the monks – devout in meditation, martial arts and humanity – would give the herds enough food to last till spring.

It would seen then hard to imagine a place of such contrasts: the serenely seated Buddha, guarded by two hostile, unforgiving sentries, surrounded by calm disposition of the gods' messengers freely walking through its grounds, and stuck right in the middle of a region wracked with a petty war neither side knew the exact reason for. Was it not the reason why Emperor Shomu built the great temple in the first place? Did he not desire the temple to protect the people from the sufferings, he himself having the steadfast belief that the statue of Buddha would give power to help the people? In return for their toils and labour, the shrine grew into the great temple, and since then it has not ceased to take the unlikely middle ground in the weary, bloody battles for capital and countryside.

But for the temple itself, it would be another winter, another war to last through. From samurai rebels to Tiara hordes and now Kamakura armies, there certainly would be no change to the character of the great temple, nor the two divinely ordained guards taking charge of the east gate, nor the stone-faced, blankly-lit, smeared statue sitting amicably in the central shrine.

* * *

But even before Aiyo could learn or get accustomed to her surroundings, she was summoned by her brother to the inner chambers. Hiojo earlier had informed her the inner chambers were for the abbots, the monks and the trusted friends of the Asano family, for it was here where all the planning and scheming and discussion took place. It appeared a bit unusual then, when after just a day in the temple, she was allowed into these restricted quarters. 

Accustomed to dressing elaborately every evening, she felt strangely bare in the simple linen robes which the monks had provided. Nonetheless, her brother wore more or less the same attire; they met at the entrance manned by several guards, who took their turns eyeing her suspiciously. But beyond the translucent paper screens, Hiojo led her past minimalist stone courtyards and gardens, by the meditation rooms where the monks were deep in prayer, and finally to the well lit room where she imagined she was sure to meet the great and noble Lord Asano.

Unfortunately, she did not see a group of men planning a war (armoured generals huddling around maps and directing runners, as she had expected), but just men in discussion. And when she crossed the threshold, they all fell silent.

Only one man stood up to greet Hiojo. He _did_ take a glance at her, but he spoke to Hojio as if he was his real brother.

"My brother Sesuke," went Hiojo, in his now familiar tired voice she was beginning to get used to. "I have fulfilled my mission, and brought back my sister."

But that was as far as the introduction went. She was left standing there, as Sesuke and Hiojo gave their report the other half-dozen or so men seated in the room. Whether it was her familiarity with being blunt or some funny custom, she felt she was being sidetracked: as formal as Sesuke and Hiojo's introductions were, her presence was explained to the other men as 'Hiojo's sister'. Then there was the strange look the other men gave after Sesuke read out their names (and titles), as if they expected her to bow or kowtow or buckle to the sheer weight of their accomplishments.

Through the gradual formality of introductions, she learnt that there were important people in the room: several battle-proud, hard-lipped generals and retainers of the Asano family. She tried to picture her father in this context: sitting to the left of the great Lord Asano, both as a retainer and general, with his sword and scabbard placed in front, discussing tactics and politics. She hoped she would not be subjected to the same fate. Sesuke's introductions swept through the men, till he reached the man with the most prominence.

"The great Lord Asano, lord of the thousand samurai and the great temple, heir to the Asano shogunate."

She eyed the man, puzzled. No, this was not the man who visited her house all those years ago, with legions of his samurai and warriors with the sound of daiko drums and flutes and gongs. She was about to turn back to Hiojo for an explanation before she was motioned by Sesuke to be seated.

_He is not like I remember him. He's too young_. She stayed quiet during the meeting which her entrance she had interrupted, casting short glances at the great Lord seated on his small dais of cushions and chairs. Even as the armed generals argued with the retainers over the best way to treat the people and other issues which she – fresh out of guest house – had no idea to approach, she examined the silent head of the Asano family. With this masculine power play of war games unfolding before him, he watched with the serene dullness of the stone Buddha in the shrine just behind the quarters.

"They are weak-minded!" one general was saying. "Arming the peasants will give them incentive to revolt or even side with the Kamakura."

"We need to show our goodwill," another one added in, "the more we keep plundering their stores to feed our soldiers, the more they are going to resent us. If we arm them, we can use them as impromptu mercenaries against the Kamakura."

"But we cannot – "

"Unless your great lord approves – "

"Without sufficient men – "

Then Sesuke spoke. When he opened his mouth, he seemed to silence everyone with one sweep of his tongue: "I agree with everyone. But do our raids go ahead as usual on the agreed date?"

She noticed some apprehension among the generals, but the universal, almost immediate consensus to Sesuke's request allowed her to make the inference he had quite a lot of power in the family too.

But before she could think anymore, the great Lord Asano announced his leave, and after speaking those few breathless words his servant girls and retainers stood up, giving him the opportunity to slowly get to his feet. As he stood at full height, everyone in the room went into a subservient kowtow; with a chorus of weapons and armour hitting wood, the generals and retainers and everyone else remained bowed low, till the great Lord was out of sight.

Only then did she realise she did not bow. But she supposed now it did not matter.

With everyone getting to their feet, she rounded up on her brother: "Would you care to explain what's going on? And why did you bring me here?"

For once Hiojo, conscious of the stares everyone else was giving them, ushered her out of the room, and into the corridor where a cold draught freely snaking its way in from the open blinds.

"These are the generals and retainers of Lord Asano's army," he began. She rolled her eyes; she knew that already. "They've been planning a raid on the Kamakura, who hold a village garrison to the north of here. It's been set to be conducted in a week's time. I brought you in because Sesuke told me to. He said you needed to know."

"Know what? All I heard were things I don't even understand," her thoughts flew to Lord Asano himself. "Lord Asano doesn't look like I remember him."

Hiojo grimaced.

"You do know that 'Lord Asano' is just a title, don't you? The real Lord Asano you knew died years ago during one winter. His eldest son, Hidetoshi is now the great Lord. And Sesuke is like his deputy, because there are two sons in the family."

Someone lit a lantern inside her head. "Oh, I get it now. He doesn't speak much, does he?"

The screen door slid open again, and this time Sesuke stormed out. He had the gait of a warrior, but he had no armour, no sword about him. Judging by his face, she thought he lived up to the younger-brother stereotype – almost a dark faced, youthful version of the great Lord being fawned over by five servants.

"Filthy backstabber! The generals interrupt my plans I've laid out nicely for him to end this war once and for all and he doesn't even bother to speak," he spat. "For all I know he might just want to dispose me and rid himself of a threat within the family."

She gave Hiojo a surprised stare.

"Just by the stupid virtue of him being older, he can become head of the Asano house. But he doesn't know how to do anything," Sesuke ranted. "Hiojo, what do you think?"

"Whatever you say," he replied hollowly.

"Hiojo, you sound like an idiot sometimes," Sesuke motioned him aside, his attention now focused on her. "There is a reason for everything I do. Would you like to question why?"

She imagined him to be just another of the men in the street on another night. It took away the veiled intimidation in his words; she knew he was a powerful holder of authority in the Asano family, yet still disgruntled at not getting credit and brotherly respect. He had to learn to read him, the simmering frustration and his façade of ceremony before Lord Asano. So she tread carefully.

"I've only been here two days. What do I know?"

He was too close for comfort, so she pulled away, slightly alarmed that Hiojo had done nothing.

"Your brother told you of our raid, and I believe, as the daughter of a samurai, you will know how to fight. We need someone to Kamakura family doesn't know, to infiltrate the garrison before we attack."

She could scarcely take in what Sesuke was saying, as Hiojo finally interceded.

"Sesuke, how could she possibly – "

"Hiojo, we've already decided what's important to us. We know who is planning and scheming against us in that garrison. I've devoted too much of my life to serve a mute brother to expect ingratitude from the person I helped to save."

"But…"

"No more questions for today," he ordered. Then his gaze angled itself at her for a moment, as if telling her she knew what to do.

There was an odd look of confusion and fear on Hiojo's face, but she ignored it, and watched Sesuke and his back sauntering down the corridor. This men's world of power, she thought, is full of hostility.

* * *

Within the shrines and the quarters of the great temple, were the barracks of the armed monks of Nara. Aiyo had heard of them, briefly, once or twice in the years past. She could not imagine however, she would be fighting with them (or fighting at all), and standing in the pugilistic hall where Hiojo had brought her for her training. 

It appeared that her experience from her limited, nocturnal world was being annulled at a daily basis. The moment she stepped into the hall, she might as well have chucked all preconceptions about martial and pugilistic arts out the window. She expected to see ranks of fighters in training; instead the horde of shaggy-robed, tonsured monks were sitting with their backs to the windows – some kneeling – and all praying, to a magnificent golden-edged statue of the Buddha, flanked by another two smaller, but no less fiercer, _Nio_. Their chanting echoed through the hollow structure of the hall.

"Pugilism is really only next to faithfulness here," Hiojo told her, observing them. "But if Sesuke had his way, they'd all be conscripted to be his samurai."

Aiyo noticed Hiojo's assortment of equipment spread out neatly behind him. Not that she doubted Hiojo's ability as a samurai (she assured herself he had been trained by experience and that would probably the best education), but did have reservations on how he would teach her – a girl, a former street worker, a sibling.

Then relief came: "First thing about the pugilistic arts is that you need to forget yourself. It's just you and your weapon – and whatever skill you have. Of course a samurai would be both skilled and trained, but don't forget, even a monk can wield a sword."

His oblique reference came with the slightest of glances at the chanting crowd.

"Pay attention," he snapped at her, as if she was not already. He picked up a wooden sword the size of a blade, but after examining it closely, he promptly threw it away. The next object he took up was his actual blade he always kept sheathed at his side. Like many times before, he flashed it before her with an air of satisfied accomplishment.

"A true samurai always keeps his blade sheathed by his side, and he is always ready to strike, even when his blade is not drawn," he gave an impressive demonstration of him whipping out his blade from his scabbard, hitting anything almost within a two metres of his right waist. "He is only loyal to his great master, and abides by his code of personal courage and perfect dignity."

He took another look at Aiyo, and she felt strangely dwarfed by these supposedly high ideals.

"But you are not a samurai, you are but the daughter of the samurai. And so there is no need of obsessive courage, or pride or _seppuku_. You still have the small needle blade father gave you?"

Yes, and now where was it? She shuffled her robes, and produced the small blade.

"That poniard was meant to reflect woman's role in samurai culture: banned from weapons, death by a needle. Samurai kill themselves because honour is lost, but women kill themselves because their husband is dead. That's the reality."

"I didn't come here to be insulted," said Aiyo in return through clenched teeth. Her grip on the small needle blade grew tighter.

"That's what every samurai across the valley thinks," he told her, and Aiyo chided herself mentally for not realising Hiojo was playing another one of his mind games. But she was still angry at him. "So it's good not to feel too disappointed should they capture you and degrade you."

Aiyo stared at her brother. "You have _that_ little faith in me?"

He laughed coldly. "No, but I don't see how you survive a samurai blade without any training. So let's begin before we waste any more time."

Hiojo knelt behind him, and handed over to her a curious instrument: a paper fan, splashed with a red circle. It looked just like the fans she used at the guest house, or those the geisha used to hide their filthy, coy smiles, just dirtier and heavier.

"Better get used to it, because you'll be using this when you fight samurai, if you survive long enough to meet them. So look closely."

There was something about the fan that was not ordinary. Still, she could not resist adopting her most sardonic voice and shooting back to Hiojo: "So what am I supposed to do? Flap this and blow them away?"

And again Hiojo let out a laugh, this time sounding less contrived. "No, you don't. Fold it and fight me."

Hiojo assembled his wooden sword and almost immediately took a swipe at Aiyo, narrowly missing her elbow. Forced into a duel, she folded the fan, crushing the paper painting, and found herself with an unlikely weapon: a thick set of the fan's iron endplates with a blunt, but pointed end which she could manage easily. As Hiojo drew it on her again, she naturally threw her hand holding the fan out at his second strike, parrying the wooden sword and forcing it away from her. The iron shaking with the blow, Hiojo rounded in on her again.

This time she was not prepared, as his wooden blade came down before above she threw her hand at the stroke – a crunch: the power of the attack and the iron had bitten through the wood. Disgusted, Hiojo lowered his stance, tossed the practice sword aside and drew his blade.

"Come on, fight me! This is how you learn!"

Ungainly and unbalanced, Aiyo came up with her own stance, noting her own robes were slightly too long for her. She needed to move to fight, and the ones they gave her were too restrictive. Wary but not wanting to show any fear, she made her first move: darting for Hiojo's thigh, she swept her fan at him. But he was extremely fast, and his blade came down hard to deflect the swipe, causing a loud clash which made some faces in the praying crowd turn.

Reeling from the strike, Aiyo did not have much time to relax when he came at her again. The blow struck at her right, and then she had to avoid another on her left; her brother was going fast and hard, and with another powerful whip of his blade, he knocked the wind out of her as she forced the strike to parry. Then again, the blade swept out from her right, heading for her shin, and again Aiyo forced it aside with the awkward, uncomely weapon of hers.

It took her several more strikes to be able to finally see a pattern in them. _Strike, withdraw, strike on the right, withdraw, strike low, withdraw, strike left… No matter how hard or fast he moves, he will always try to catch my side unguarded after every other move._ With a slight flush of confidence, she deflected a hard strike aimed at her abdomen, and – like they had taught her at the guest house – raised her fan to her chin, edging it open, as if to tease a suitor.

_Strike left, I'll show you…_

When Hiojo threw his blade at her left, Aiyo did not block the attack – she caught the blade in between her two endplates and urged it away from his grip. But he had already made his move, the force of the blade driving it through the paper fan and across Aiyo's left leg.

"Arghhh! You stabbed me!" she hollered, then buckled under her wounded leg.

"Stop whining. Let me see that," Hiojo had just a mere glance at it, and he have an unconvincing laugh. "Just a graze, a slight injury. Ask one of the monks to attend to you."

Pressing her now two bloodied hands over the wound, she gave her brother a look of stunned confusion. "And you're not going to do anything?"

"Training injuries are common here during all our practices. If you want to get better, you have to get used to seeing your own blood. Understand?" She hated it when he talked to her like a little child sometimes. He tossed the torn fan, albeit with its endplates intact, to her.

_Understood._

**_

* * *

_**

******Notes:**

_Again, thank you very much for all your reviews. This one took some time – in the words of my grandmother, this chapter really _buay chu_ (Hokkien for cannot come out). Honestly speaking, I got a bit busy during mid-May because of my range duties every weekend, and then got a bit distracted and disinterested with this fic. But I don't believe in writers' block, and so this chapter, however disconnected, is the product of me forcing myself to get down to writing. _

_As always, reviews (especially flames) are welcome. I require practical suggestions as to how I can improve._****

_(29.05.06)_


	8. Signs

**8. Signs**

"What is it? Can you teach me to use it?"

Ignoring the slight pull of the injury at her leg, she accepted the weapon from the monk. They had resorted to assisting her in her pugilistic training for the openly announced raid on the Kamakura fort across the valley. However, unlike the highly trained and sword-wielding samurai loyal to the two Asano brothers, the monks were more – both in tactics, warriors and weaponry – unconventional.

She held the long shaft of the weapon up to examine it; unlike all the blades, spears, lances and bows Hiojo had trained her with, this weapon had the advantage of range. It was bulky and heavy, wrought out of iron, and resembled an overgrown metal spear with an engorged, blunt head at best. According to the monks who were trained in the use of it, this weapon fired an iron ball with a loud noise for a distance of close to thirty metres.

The monk removed a piece of steel and flint from within his robes. It took him three strikes to get the flint alight, and once he did, he motioned Aiyo to hand over the weapon. Indicating a small hole just below the weirdly, large shaped head, he pointed the weapon straight and aimed it at the ground several metres away. He inserted the lighted flint, and then –

BANG.

Whoa.

The crater was still seething with smoke at the point of impact. Here the monk reached deep and pulled out the iron ball, a rough, barbaric bullet which Aiyo held in her palm - for that second, until she realised it was still hot. The monk laughed.

"Filthy monk," she cursed him. But without doubt the weapon was interesting. The monks had brought several hundred from a Chinese merchant and were learning how to use them.

Despite being insulted, the monk agreed to show her how they were training to use the weapon. In one of the courtyards, far removed from the tranquil grounds of the temple, several monks were instructing people – people who were villagers and herdsmen – how to hold the weapon still and fire at straw scarecrows, resembling targets, from a distance. Facing the forest, the echoes of the weapons going off were not as loud as she had expected.

"Why train villagers?" she asked the monk.

"Ask the abbot," he simply replied, as if not wishing to broach the subject.

The man at the centre of all the mayhem and smoke, a portly, stout abbot, instructed the local villagers and directed the other monks, acting more like a samurai general rather than a man of spiritual maturity and discernment. As Aiyo approached him, she noticed he appeared to stiffen at the sight of a lady, especially one of the Asano household, observing him.

"You're the Eboshi boy's sister, aren't you?" he questioned her. "I did not expect you to pay a visit to my range."

"And I would not expect an abbot of such seasoned divine experience such as yourself to be the general of this unlikely local militia," she retorted.

The abbot did not ease his gaze on his trainees. "War is war, my lady. And we all have different ways to prepare for it. Your samurai endlessly practice against each other, we monks meditate and hope we achieve enlightenment before we enter battle and these villagers, abused by lord and samurai alike, decide they have had enough. The fire cannon is just an instrument for them to vent their frustration."

A villager took aim with the weapon, introduced as the fire cannon, firing with a blast of fire at a target and completely ripping through its straw and wood frame.

"Does Lord Asano forbid you from training his samurai?" Aiyo asked, a prodding question stabbing into the dark of the abbot's intentions.

And the abbot raised an uncertain eyebrow at the insinuation. "It means nothing if I believe this weapon can help us win the war, because Lord Asano's word is law here."

Monitoring the trainees at their target practice, the abbot barked at the villagers and monks alive. He got them organised into a formation of sorts: villagers at the front, crouched with their fire cannons mounted and the monks, faces blurred with ash, assisting behind in the crucial lighting of the flints. At his command, they stood at the ready, and let loose fiery barrage of fire, iron and smoke, wrecking the trees in the nearby distance, beyond the already ruined targets.

"When the attack begins and Lord Asano's samurai fall back, these men will be at the frontline," the abbot stated nonchalantly, his nose prickling in response to the heat and smoke. "Then Lord Asano has instructed that we fall back and let the samurai regroup and win the battle."

_So Sesuke does not want his credit stolen from him, even in defeat. _It was an enticing thought, one which Aiyo knew she could use in some way or another. But now her mind was fixed on that cannon, and how she wanted to know about it completely.

"Abbot, can you teach me how to use it?" she requested.

The abbot failed to flinch at her. "Please, do not call me abbot, for you are neither my disciple nor recruit. Address me by the name of everyone lower than Lord Asano, and call me Jigo. And I'm not too certain about how your guardians take of your involvement with me. I'm not exactly the Asanos' best friend."

She scoffed at the word guardian; was he deliberately trying to provoke her to see how she would react? Nothing doing, she would stay willing to learn and enthusiastic, not giving him the pleasure of seeing her respond as callously as Sesuke or her brother.

Without even waiting for him to give his approval, she picked up one of the cannons strewn on the floor and placed it forward, eyeing her target. Her hands fumbled with the flint.

"You need to put your right hand over the shaft and keep it firm," he instructed her from out of sight, "then light the flint with your left."

She complied. But she did have trouble lighting the flint, keeping the stick of metal and the flint entwined in her fingers. But once her stick caught the red glow of the lighted flint she paused only to take a closer aim. BANG. The shaft shook and she almost lost grip of it.

With a strike of disappointment in her next glance, she noticed she had not even gotten close to the target.

"Everyone misses their first shot," he said. "You need to keep the shaft steady until the very last moment you fire. So that when the shot leaves the cannon, it stays on course. Try it again. This time get in rank."

Aiyo cast a defiant look at the man, and simply loaded with cannon with another pound of iron and coarse metal shavings as she had seen the others doing with their bare hands. She knew she was disobeying an order, but as he had mentioned himself, she was not his devotee or trainee; instead, she held the shaft steady, lit the flint much more confident this time and took a sharper aim at the target.

The mass of flame and iron struck the torso of the already broken target, sending it into the air in pieces.

Proudly, she loaded the cannon with the iron and the metal fragments, before handing it over to the abbot. Aiyo looked at him in the eye, knowing full well he was weighing the awkwardness of the situation.

"Abbot, if you teach me and let me participate in all your drills in the future, I will find a way for your monks and your men to kill samurai during the battle," she said. It was an offer to him, and she already could see the promise these weapons had. "Trust me."

"Trust a woman's word?"

Aiyo glowered at him, but it did not take the smirk off his face.

"Trust the word of a tayu?" he continued. He was beginning to stalk off to see his men. "We'll see."

* * *

Aiyo had begun to mentally make a countdown to the day of the attack. 

Several days before the expected strike, the great Lord Asano allowed Sesuke and Hiojo and a handful of the key generals his army to return to Kyoto to enjoy themselves, or to spent the day praying before their great deceased ancestors. Aiyo was given permission to tag along.

Sesuke and Hiojo, the most influential of the entire group, headed off to Kyoto. Even before they had left, Aiyo already knew where they were headed, but when they pulled up at the street which divided the geisha and tayu quarters, she tried to ignore the fact she was back at the same road where she once solicited for customers.

The scenery was as unchanged as ever. The guest house, with its lone lantern dangling over the front porch, was still there. The geisha houses, with their innocent facades and simple décor, were still across their houses of ill repute. And there even was a tayu strolling through the street, eyeing the men with plain linen robes and scabbards swaying from their waists longingly.

The men headed away rowdily to the geisha houses: who could resist the flatter and the prestige of being entertained by Kyoto geisha in their tea houses? She knew with Sesuke leading, the men were expecting a good time; yet before they could all enter the tea house, Aiyo tugged her brother back just as was about to enter.

"So you and the others are going in. Then what do I do here?" he hissed angrily at him.

"You could follow us in," he said bluntly, but his glare told it all: he was more worried on missing out. Aiyo could read into the look on his face but now, at this wretched place, she did not have the will to confront him.

"You are a hopeless brother," she swore.

Hiojo gave her a curious glance, appearing surprised, but entered shortly after, leaving her outside listening to the well-rehearsed welcome giggles of the geisha girls within.

Aiyo did not wish to wander around this hated street. The first place she headed to was the back alley behind the guest house; as much as she disliked the pervasive air of the place, she found herself hoping with, like a tayu on a winter night, for a familiar face on the street – maybe a glimpse of a younger understudy (she could not even remember their names, just their always pained, disgruntled faces), or a sight of Chie, or even Meiko. Unfortunately, at this hour, she found none of those recurring faces along the street, save the merchants and their iron workshops.

And the lepers who begged outside them.

At the sight of a lady, dressed in fine white linen, with a stash on her hair bearing a samurai logo, they moved up from their places and trooped towards her. While she had never had anything against them, she was alarmed by their numbers.

"Spare some coins for us, my Lady," said the first one, a young man with a bandages snaking around his arms and head, and leaning on a stick for support.

Their stench was almost unbearable: the sweat from years of unwashed bodies and wounds, and the hot, heated breaths from their decaying throats pleading for alms, for a moment overwhelmed her. There were men and women alike, their faces swiped with dirt and disease, many accompanied by a haze of flies, and those who were already in the final stages of their fate. There was one, Aiyo saw, who appeared to have all his limbs sawn off, till he seemed to be a grossly taped doll with an enlarged body and miniature odds and ends. He squirmed on the back of his friend, who kneeled low as he approached her.

"My lady, they say a priestess touch can cure any disease," he murmured through his cover of bandages.

"I am not a priestess," she said, backing away back down the street. She wondered why she had not run.

"But you are from the Great Temple in the east," he continued, hobbling with her step by step.

The emblem of the Asano house had given her away. Damn Asano and his house, she cursed again. She shunned a hand who reached out to touch her arm. "How do you know the Asano?" she questioned him.

"I was a servant in the house of the Great Lord Asano before I fell ill," he said gravely, his voice dropping out hoarsely from behind the bandages. "Have mercy on me, my Lady."

Then Aiyo saw it: he was plodding along on the burnt out end of a shaft – the same shaft of a fire cannon.

In those short moments, the wheels were clicking in Aiyo's head. From the charred leper's walking stick to the weapon she had armed, lit and fired – she could almost feel the fire spew out from the loud bang – and there she put two and two together.

She rounded on the man within an instant. "Do you know you use the fire cannon?"

"My lady?"

She looked at the others also, and then realised these were more than dying beggars. "Listen to me," she declared, "I am from the Great Temple at Nara, and I need your help. I will reward you. How many of you know how to use the fire cannon?"

They stared at each other, their innate desire to reach forth and grasp her robes stalled and stilled.

"My lady," said another, "many of us do not know how to use these sticks that spit fire. But we are sons and daughters of the merchants, and many of us can work metal."

She listened to them speak weakly. But she could think and hear something beyond their voices, and it was almost perfect.

* * *

The evening before the attack, the Great Temple was embraced by a deep, slumbering silence which seemed to drift in from the hills. Aiyo, sitting bolt upright on her bed in intense thought, could not bring herself to sleep. _It's too quiet_, she told herself, knowing her excuse was completely against her conscience, which had already prepared her for the fight she would be taking part in. 

Tonight, there were no men training in the halls and no loud, noisy meditations from the monks. All were either resting or in the heavy sleep which came before a battle. As Aiyo moved over to the window, the breeze shook the single taper burning inside the lanterns on each side of the window. A vicious fog was breaking across the valley; Aiyo could for a second witness herself on the other side of the valley – the closed blades of her fan in her grasp – pacing the assigned route – with the shouts of men ringing all around her like birds in a forest –

_Enough._ Rubbing her eyes she tried to force herself to yawn, so she could feel tired. But instead found herself glancing at the darkness, and the small town with the fort across the valley, where the Kamakuras were probably having a better night than she was.

She just about to tear herself away from the window when she heard something – the faint rustling of something other than leaves against the trees. Her eyes now far from being drowsy and her ears sensitive to any movement inn the night, she gazed at the cover of several willows from the window ledge, leaning forward so far that she could see the empty corridor below. All she saw was darkness, the burning lanterns below and the weeping branches of the willows being consoled by the dimmest of light from the lanterns.

_I wish I could stop playing mind games with myself. _She moved back in, yet still holding the uneasy feeling that something was still out there.

Then again – now much clearer and nearer, the sound of rustling through the thick cover of the trees. Aiyo first felt unnecessary bold by not reaching for the iron fan resting on the table near her bed, but the second thing she wanted to do was find out what was causing this ruckus on the such a deceitfully peaceful night. Aiyo saw that someone was moving below also – probably a guard attracted by the noise, which was now coming to her in unseen, but heavy waves, like patches of movement in the dark, coming closer to her open view right outside her window.

And when she saw it, Aiyo wondered if she was really dreaming.

She found herself staring into an unsettling, yet unreal sight: it was a man, but not really a man because no man could have such pale skin: a man, wearing a soft red kimono, with a furrowed brow and a devilishly wicked grin, carrying a spear in his hands. He shot out from the trees first, full into the light of the lanterns at Aiyo's window; she was so absorbed with the sight of a man suddenly appearing from the night that she failed to register a second, more disturbing detail: the man was in the air, not flying, but riding an ostensibly large white boar – with wings, grunting and heaving itself and its rider through the air.

If such a vision of a skeletal pale man riding loosely on a flying boar did not seem so hideous at first sight, Aiyo might have found it completely ridiculous and unreasonable, especially at this time of the night.

But it was as real as the trees and the night. It passed by in full view of Aiyo's window light, the nearest branch disturbed its ascent. As she stood staring dumbly, the man gave a slight jerk of his head. Only then did Aiyo notice he had an extremely long and thin nose, like a twig sticking out of his face.

The man and the creature he was riding on drifted swiftly through and finally out of the space of light, and Aiyo could hear it alight on the branches of the nearest tree, before moving on and again, presumably disappearing into the fog, which was now scaling the walls of the valley with its uneasy calm.

And below people were shouting. She was not the only person who had sighted the monster. As the full vision hit her, she finally regained her senses from the initial sight, and asked herself the obvious question which she had no obvious answer: _what in the world was that?_

The people below were still shouting, now in discernible voices a single world: "Tengu! Tengu!"

Aiyo tried to numb her brain to focus; she shut her eyes tight and then opened them. The man and his creature were still clear in her head, but she moved back to the window, half expecting it to show itself again and charge at her through the open window. This time, as peered below, the whole temple seemed to be awake, and samurai were running back and forth with their weapons as if the battle had begun.

"My lady, are you all right?"

One of the samurai called up to her from below. He had his sheathed blade in his hands and was instructing other samurai in the direction where the – thing had fled.

"I'm fine," Aiyo replied. And that was all she could say at the moment.

"My lady, I saw it too. It was a tengu. The monks say this place, like the forests further to the east are filled with spirits and sometimes they wander around, especially on a tense night as this."

It was quite a ridiculous explanation, she told herself. But as the samurai departed without waiting for a response, it was all she could absorb at the moment.

She shut her windows, and left one lantern burning by the window. The sounds from below were already starting to calm down. The appearance of that thing – the tengu, the goblin, the monster – was (as much as Aiyo did not want to admit it) something amounting to an omen, and with the carefully planned directions for tomorrow churning around in her mind and the image of the tengu's extended nose poking through it, she did not have a good night.

* * *

Notes: 

_Whoa. This took me 2 months to write. This one is unedited, fresh and simple: it was used specifically to cover up all the plot holes. _

_Been feeling it harder and harder to write; I guess its natural when the stories get longer and more complicated. But still I'm thankful all your reviews and your takes on what's going on. All of you flatter me too much (haha.. just joking). Right now I'm deep in training for my race on 20 Aug, and also playing for the police hockey team. And contrary to belief, during times like this I write more to reduce the stress of competition. So keep your fingers crossed, I might come up with the next one sooner than usual._

_(05.07.06)_


	9. Assault

**9. Assault**

"_Remember what we've told you, Aiyo. Once you're within the walls of the fortress, you must make sure the Kamakuras are within the rooms, then you give the signal for assault."_

Aiyo started off early in the morning, with nothing but her basket to disguise her as an agent of the Asano's impending skirmish in the town. While she was sure she was alone, unwatched and independent of all the complicated and ridiculous tactics devised by the generals, she was certain Hiojo has sent someone to monitor her. She was sure that idiot brother of hers (she called him that in his absence) did not trust her with the task of infiltrating the Kamakura fort.

For her part, she was content of her simple mission; it was never her intention to be out in the ranks of the samurai in open combat. The easy part would be to walk straight into enemy territory and to signal the samurai hordes patiently waiting along the valley slopes. The hard part was – now this was the problem: she could not even visualize it. What was she going to do when the Kamakuras realised she had signaled the Asanos to attack?

For the moment, things seemed simply enough. Following the beaten path through the valley in the midst of the early morning fog, she could see the dim, dark outlines of the town which she saw defined as an enemy fort from her bedroom window. Parts of the countryside, bleak and uninviting, were scattered with ruins: Aiyo caught sight of a grove of headstones, signifying a hasty grave, for many dead whose burial was probably performed by very few of the living.

She hurried her pace.

At the final turn out of the valley, Aiyo followed the trail up a steep rise, and even before she had reached its crest, the sound of human and animal voices welcomed her out from the dubious trail which she had taken. Carts, manned by villagers, accompanied by men and women dressed in farming gear, were heading towards the fields, for their early morning routines during this pre-winter harvest. They largely ignored her as she joined them; Aiyo's white linen robes of nobility where exchanged a simple, heavy kimono, similar to those which the _tayu_ wore on cold, fall days. Just that today was far from those former days, she told herself.

At the gate to the town, a sentry stood with a spear at attention – but not attentive enough, because Aiyo slipped past him, completely avoiding his eye for foreigners with ease. Once within the town, she was given the impression of a town eager – too prepared – for war. Like all traditional towns and villagers, a shrine was set in the centre of the linear, dirt streets; open wood and mortar houses contained within them reared poultry and hay and women pounding grain. Chickens and goats and sheep and children were running through the scene which anyone, at anytime, would have called bucolic, pastoral, peaceful – yet the armed spears, patrolling samurai and armoured horses betrayed all that.

Several samurai eyed her.

But she ignored them, preferring not to think she had been noticed. Pretending to be one of the villagers, she reached out to one of the wide-eyed children and led him away.

"Hello, my friend," she spoke to the boy, "can you tell me where the master of this town lives?"

"Over there," he pointed through the streets and past the shrine.

_"The Kamakura fort may look very prominent from where we are. But below, in the valley, there are villages clustered together and definitely there will be a marketplace or an intersection before the fort. From down there, those stone walls may not seem very high, but they will be an obstacle enough for Sesuke's forces. So, first thing in the town, you find the fort, at the west, in the direction of those hills."_

She did not need to be shown the way; with Hiojo's instructions still ringing in her head, she could more or less orienteer her way through the jumble of homes and small farms and blacksmiths. She passed a mounted samurai, who barked orders at several spear-wielding villagers to stay alert and at ready for any attack. They obeyed him with disdain, and Aiyo's heart lifted a little. If they only knew what was in store for them.

Sure enough, an intersection and a makeshift market of carts and crude stalls was assembled at the edge of a grassy verge, where the fort's wooden gates were thrown open for the tradesmen and villagers to do their business. Here Aiyo grew uneasy at the concentration of armed samurai, who appeared to be the bosses over the tradesmen and villagers, shouting and randomly ordering them around.

But then Aiyo also remembered: _"We may not have much information within the Kamakura fort. But we know enough to drag them into a battle among the villages. There are men planted among the town, prepared to act on our signal. When you raise the signal, they will either attack the samurai to prevent them from retreating into the fort, or set alight the villagers' houses." _

Vicious plans, thought Aiyo. Sesuke, with the combined help of villagers, undercover samurai and the abbot Jigo, had orchestrated and carefully planned every wave of attack. Whether they would count in the end or not, Aiyo did not want to know – although she had initiated several other safeguards herself, without their knowledge, just in case anything else went wrong.

The gates, though open, were well guarded, manned by as many as ten samurai who watched as tradesmen and villagers alike carried their wares and carts into the fort, laden with hay, grain, poultry or weapons. Like before, she had to give the impression she was a villager; as a column of rice-bearing cattle made their way into the fort, she joined up with them, keeping her head down and allowing her pace to be even with that of the column.

The Kamakura samurai screened the column as it passed through the gates; unlike the armed villagers, the samurai were persistently watchful, although she saw some of them looked largely bored. She kept her head down, concentrating on the neatly woven rims of her basket, and moments later, she could feel the laser gaze of the samurai on her.

"Miss, what is your business here?"

One of them caught her by her arm, and stopped her. In a flash, all Aiyo could see was his unsheathed blade and the armour extending to his bare knuckles which stopped her in her tracks. But now she desperately needed an excuse –

"None. At least till you let me pass," she responded, in as much a straight tone as she could come out with.

Boldly (or foolishly) she looked straight into the samurai's eye, trying to reason with him with her stare. She knew samurai psyche; she was going to have to work around their characteristic suspicion and hardness. Choosing carefully not to harden her impression but to remain as blank as ever to the samurai's suspicion, she waited. Anyway, no samurai would skewer an unarmed woman in public; it was against all their codes of honour.

"All right, all right," he finally relented, dropping his grip on her arm. "Get inside."

She shook herself free, and entered the fort, now more relieved than ever.

If it were not for the Great Temple being the central focus of the Asanos' army, Aiyo was sure the fort would be exactly similar to the Kamakura one which she was navigating through now. Shirking away from the crowd, she slipped into one of the open corridors, hoping to find the way to the ramparts where she could have a good look of the town from over the walls.

All the while she was attempting to summon Hiojo's exact words: _You need to get onto those walls, high above the samurai and traders. The signal must be clear if you want us to rush down to free the town and rescue you. If the signal is vague or not loud enough, we may miss it, and then you will be dead before we can cross the valley. _

Following the cracked, stone walls she caught herself in a chilly breath of wind, and accompanied it till she found an open arch – and a parapet on the ramparts. But there were samurai here. Their threatening longbows and stacks of arrowheads lined neatly at the edge for easy loading. Too dangerous.

_If there are samurai there, then there is no turning back. We agreed this mission would be dangerous. But this is for Father's honour and the Eboshi family name._

Aiyo scoffed. She did not agree on anything; she had been more or less forced to do this, part of her own personal gratitude at Hiojo rescuing her from the guest house. And as for family honour and revenge, she had enough of that samurai talk.

From her basket she removed a piece of flint and the stick of metal which she would have used to light any fire cannon. But instead, as she was told by Hiojo and instructed by the abbot Jigo, she struck the flint and caught the fiery glow of metal stick. Within her basket lay enough powder, iron and smoke to send a signal to a temple on a hill across the valley several miles away –

_No time to waste. _With a tightened breath, she chucked the glowing stick into the basket, the scent of iron and powder magnifying in her senses tenfold. Then she flung it out into the open, towards the samurai at the ramparts.

_Then now you run, and find your way out. _She heard a cry of surprise. Barely several moments before the whole corridor seemed to come alive, and the basket burst into a huge plume of white smoke, iron and fire, firing away into the air and shaking the entire fortress with a swift thud. BOOM. Again, Aiyo was caught in the choking odour of iron and pale grey smoke.

_If you cannot find your way out, find somewhere to hide before you can be rescued. _Aiyo dashed down the corridor. Now this was the hard part. BOOM. Another round of the explosive in that innocent basket rang through the fort, mixed with the uncertain voices of men. She stumbled down the flight of steps, as men and women from the fortress rushed about in a state of neatly chaotic frenzy. Someone knocked into her, sending into a wall, touching a sensitive area of her old wound on her leg.

"Put out the fire! Man the ramparts!"

"Summon all men who can fight!"

Running now, Aiyo slipped back down the open corridors and back to the open area of the fortress, where men and horses were being mobilized and people were running about screaming, some ghastly burned. The distinctive stench of fire and iron was filling the fortress, and a red glow illuminated the outer walls from the direction where she came from. Aiyo knew she could not just filter out the main gates so simply: with all the men and women hard at work putting out the flames, she would be caught. She needed to buy time, to escape at the right moment – but soon too.

"The enemy is coming!"

A samurai perched on the highest tower shouted the warning, and the people below moved even faster, panicked.

"Protect Lord Seiya Kamakura! Defend the fortress with your lives!"

_Where have I heard that name before? _The word Kamakura had been so spitefully linked to the enemy in Hiojo's conversations that she could not recognise individual names.

Then it struck her: the man who killed her Father.

Now an invisible force was moving in place of Aiyo's conscious mission to escape. She turned back past the open corridors, eyes open for any samurai who would be more highly decorated than the usual sentries she saw earlier. Passing through the scores of women, children and old folk, she was about to turn into the corridor which would have led her into the very heart of the fortress when she met resistance.

"I've seen you before!" it was the same samurai sentry whom she had problems with earlier. "You're not from the town, aren't you? Traitor! We have a spy! We –"

Acting on instinct, she leveled a hard punch at the samurai's armoured head, smacking him square between the eyes. But that only served to bruise her knuckles, and convince the samurai she was hostile.

"Eh, I'll slice you in half, minx!"

In a split second, she whipped out her fan, folded, its iron endplates facing the samurai, who had drawn a ruthless katana capable of skewering her. As he came down with his first strike, she moved aside nimbly and, seeing an opportunity, thrust her weapon at the hand holding the blade.

The samurai stumbled. But her hopes of ending it neatly and quickly were gone when he got to his feet almost instantly. He was a Kamakura samurai, not an Asano recruit from Nara. She hoped her underestimation would not prove costly.

The samurai struck her fan, forcing her to parry his powerful blow. Fighting in the stance Hiojo taught her, her eyes blinking at the sting of the smoke billowing through the corridor. The samurai too looked disoriented, but he swung the blade, stabbing mercilessly, trying to spear her through. When she found that she could not dodge the thrust, she fought off; the endplates struck the blade, forcing it aside, missing her face narrowly.

But the samurai was fast too, and suddenly advancing, the armoured plates from his right arm slammed full into Aiyo's face – and for that second she saw nothing but a deep painful blankness – only to recover with her back to the wall. The samurai's blade swept through the air, striking at her – but again she only just defended herself, smashing iron against iron.

"I'll tear you apart, bitch!"

And he clumsily charged at her. Aiyo knew that if she continued fighting like this he would eventually overpower her weak defence and impale her through. So as his charge carried him forward – only by a moment – she dashed aside, and swung the endplates of her fan against his unarmoured face, catching him full in his right eye.

"ARHHH!"

Berserk and blinded with blood, she flung his blade at her, tearing through Aiyo's right shoulder and for the third time, just missing her face. But Aiyo refused to waver; although badly bleeding herself, she waited for an opening. Envisioning herself fighting Hiojo, she dodged another empty blow and struck the samurai in the face again, sending him crashing down, panting and wounded.

Aiyo wasted no time. She seized the katana and, ignoring the slicing pain in her shoulder, slit the samurai's throat without difficulty.

The smoke was becoming unbearable. Aiyo, not realizing the adversary she had overcome and the blood streaming down both her punctured nose and cut shoulder, fled down the corridor back into the open. Sounds of swords clashing and horses and shouts of men being flayed were coming from outside the walls. Not wanting to miss out on the battle, she slipped past samurais in the confusion, keeping to the wall to avoid being hit by arrows from both enemy and ally, finally making it to the ramparts to view the carnage.

Below, the town and the merchants' shanties were ablaze, and dead bodies were strewn across the battlefield. The fortress itself was burning, and the women and children forced to fight the fires in the open were dropping like flies, hit by arrows fired on from below. Asano's samurai sliced through the ranks of the town militia, garroting them as they rode and cutting down anything that ran from them. A man with a sword rushed out to confront the invaders, and one timely blow from the mounted samurai spilt his brains and cut his face into half. And from above Kamakura archers and artillery were responding heartlessly in defence: already wounded, a storm of arrows descended on an Asano samurai, till he appeared to be a struggling porcupine squirming in pain. A final arrow found him in the throat, and the struggling ceased.

From this height, Aiyo could make out the dim outlines of ranks after ranks of samurai advancing through the small town – and the unmistakable bangs of the fire cannons, the iron pellets hitting unknown targets before resounding in volley fire again. Were they those from Jigo's men, or were the fighters she herself planted doing their job? She had to get out of the fortress to find out.

"The gate has been breached! The fortress is breached!"

Then more shouts and yells echoed from below, and a huge boom shook the fortress again. Aiyo saw the archers leave their positions, draw their katanas and rush down the staircases. Again, this time she trailed them. As they streamed down the stairs, she flung her newly acquired katana at the last fleeing figure, severing his neck from his shoulders.

The lifeless body, propelled by its own force, rolled down the stairs. Waiting before pouncing into the open, Aiyo heard the muffled sounds of a man trying to defend himself, and failing miserably; the ever-nearing fire's glow cast a shadow of a samurai spearing another, and as he advanced she showed herself, but her blade still ready.

"I'm an Eboshi!" she cried as the samurai attempted to swing his blade at her. "I'm the sister of Hiojo Eboshi!"

The samurai appeared to pause for a moment, but recovered soon enough.

"My lady! Quick, I will escort you outside the fortress to the backline where you will be safe Praise heaven you are still alive!"

Under this samurai's escort, they dashed through the open section of the fortress, passing samurai butchering other samurai, and fleeing children being slashed to pieces by armed men. Once outside the gates, the stench of death hit Aiyo hard and, avoiding the results of finished scenes of fighting, she followed the friendly warrior past more ranks of archers and cavalry, till she saw a familiar face.

"Abbot Jigo!"

"My lady," he replied in kind. "We are glad to see you safe."

As the samurai excused himself to join the battle, he scarcely raised an eye at her battle scars.

"You are wounded, my lady," he said.

"It does not matter. Pass me a cannon. I have to go back into the battle."

Jigo eyed her with his look of outstanding scrutiny again.

"Are you going to give me one or are you going to continue to stare at me?" she demanded of him.

He wordlessly handed over a cannon to her, but as if remembering an afterthought he barked at several of his monks: "Follow her and make sure she doesn't do anything foolish."

Aiyo set off towards the burning fortress, the only thing in her mind right now was to find Seiya Kamakura. Doubtless, Hiojo and Sesuke would be looking for him too, but she of all people wanted to find this man and find out the reason for all this bloodshed. And then kill him.

A sharp pain bit into her senses, the wounded flash stung, but she kept moving. She heard firing coming from the burning and ravaged town, and leading the confused monks away from the fortress, met up with several other men carrying fire cannons. The monks seemed to recoil at the sight of men wrapped from head to toe in bandages.

"Hypocrites!" she scolded them. "These lepers are on our side. Has everything gone according to plan?"

The man answered as if giving a report: "As both you and Hiojo Eboshi ordered, once the signal went out we set the houses alight, and fired upon the Kamakura samurai retreating into the fort. We are running out of pellets, but we have taken the town."

"And the leader of the Kamakura?" Aiyo asked

As if to answer her question, a loud shout was heard coming from the fortress, and the ranks of samurai besieging it threw down their arms and celebrate. The archers ceased firing, till only the echo of the cannons deeper in the town could be heard. And over the ramparts, there appeared to be a man hoisting aloft the ultimate trophy: a severed head.

__

Seppuku had to be observed, samurai traditions needed to be upheld – as Sesuke ordered. Once Seiya Kamakura had been finally killed, all of the Kamakura samurai, still armed, were hauled out from the fort into the open intersection where the entire of the Asano's army was assembled. Here, surrounded by hostile samurai, all were ordered to commit _seppuku_. And, as single-mindedly honourable samurai, Aiyo watched as they took their turns to thrust their own blades in ritual, noble suicide into their own bodies. Occasionally, one of two members of Asano's army would step up, to lob off the heads of the agonized men, to spare them further pain.

But that was the only noble thing about the samurai victory, as Aiyo would learn later. In the horrific aftermath of the assault on the Kamakura town and fortress, the dead and dying which were dragged out of the town formed unsightly piles which the samurai burned all through the night. It was even a joke that, in death, the Kamakura samurai kept their enemies warm through the cold autumn night. Trophy heads were collected by the commanders, and even when she met her brother for the first time since the attack began, all he could complain about was how Sesuke was not willing to allow him to keep Seiya's head as a trophy.

"I was the one who cut it from his neck! I deserve the honour!" he told her.

The fortress was left to burn down through the night, leaving an acrid cloud of iron and fire hanging over the Asano encampment, mixed with the stench of death. Headless samurai were stripped off their armour. The bodies of the dead townspeople were added to the bonfires. A light drizzle cooled the fires at evening; Aiyo did not know if the heavens were crying over such bloodshed. Pools of rainwater collected at the intersection, stained red with blood.

But far worse than the desecration of the bodies was the fate of those who survived. Aiyo saw samurai escorting away rows of men suspected to be Kamakura militia into the forest, limbless except for their legs, and never to be seen again. Women, even the tayu, were violated regardless of their age, their crying and screaming echoing on through the night.

In the morning, Aiyo was roused awake by Hiojo. Asano's army would be moving back to Nara, but something had to be done first, and Aiyo was required. Puzzled, she followed.

The fortress had burnt itself to the ground at night, leaving only the blackened shell of the former buildings. Hiojo led Aiyo towards the forest, to a small grove of trees, where samurai guarded what seemed to be three vertical wooden poles, completely out of character in the forest.

But as Aiyo approached, she saw three people grotesquely tied onto the poles.

"Captured by Sesuke and his men," Hiojo said, beaming with an awful flourish. "Seiya Kamakura's family."

Two women and one young child were tied to the poles. As Aiyo advanced forward, she thought she was going to be sick. The nearest prisoner appeared to be the older woman; she had been completely stripped, and her anguished face held its frozen expression skyward. A huge incision, made by a katana, ran from pubic hair to throat in one straight line. The flies were already beginning to settle on her. Pole she had been bound to was so red with blood it almost glowed as the rising sun touched it.

The other two were younger, much younger. One was a girl not much older than Aiyo herself; also stripped of her robes, she was sobbing, and apart from what Aiyo saw as severe bruising at her genital area and her breasts was unharmed. The final prisoner was a young boy, barely older than ten, whose face had been pummeled and punched so hard it ceased to resemble a face anymore.

Hiojo stood over the boy. "It is said in samurai folklore, as Father told us, that by sparing the two children of his enemy, the great Kiyomori planned his own family's downfall. As such, likewise, no children of our enemy will live to see another sunrise."

In one single move, Hiojo drew his blade and beheaded the boy. The head flopped as if defying gravity, before landing in a bloody mess on the grass. Aiyo watched her brother, horrified by his plain brutality, nauseous by all the massacre.

"Why did you do that?" she questioned him. "He was just a boy!"

"Ah sister, the children of our enemy grow up and when they are strong and influential, they will murder us. We are our own example! We fought back, we lived and we have avenged Father at last!"

He handed her the blade. "There's one last member of the Kamakura family left."

As Aiyo held the blade, she stared into the tear-splashed face of Seiya Kamakura's teenage daughter. There was a kind of condensed anger reaching inside her; she could only remember, blankly, her own sister's faces, and her years of solitude as a tayu, and the smoke in her lungs as she dodged a samurai swinging a katana at her -

Aiyo seized the girl by her throat, and brought the blade down gently across it. A stifled moan, a gag and then coughing, and the girl was dead, her tongue thrashing in her half open mouth stilled. As Hiojo ordered the samurai to dispose the bodies, the feeling before was gone.

She was now standing in the forest, the scent of death all around her, and most of all, blood all over her hands and robes.

****

Notes:

_Finally posted this long chapter after doing all the edits. Apologies for taking such a long time to update. I've been very busy lately with work, and all this was only completed during one day of sick leave. Which proves that being sick doesn't stop me from writing when I need to._

_Honestly I would've liked to have extended the battle scene and make more of the fight between the Asanos and the Kamakuras. But like every fanfic writer in this genre, I want to get to the point quickly, and get into familiar territory before the story becomes a lag. I admit I'm not putting in my best effort (I feel the plot isn't too good), but once I get all the characters in place, I'll be focusing on how to tie everything together._

_Hiojo's reference to samurai folklore in justifying infanticide and complete execution of a defeated samurai's family comes from a true story during the time of the Heiji Insurrection (1159 A.D). During the fight between the two warrior houses – the Tiara and Minamoto – Tiara Kiyomori, the chief of his family and victor over his rivals, took control of the government at Kyoto and imposed a powerful rule with his family in charge. But instead of completely eliminating all opposition, he showed mercy to two sons of a Minamoto general, and banished them away to the east. This' folly of mercy' was to result in the overthrow of the Tiara family by these two noble sons of the defeat family – Yoritomo and Yoshitsune Minamoto – in a series of wars known as the Gempei War in the years 1181 to 1185. All samurai in battle thereafter learnt this lesson and in all wars to come, infants and children of defeated clans were publicly executed. _

_I will be on extended deployment in Sep, owning to the World Bank/IMF annual general meetings being held in Singapore from Sep 19-20. If extended deployment allows me access to a computer, I should probably be able to finish the next few chapters soon. Keep your fingers crossed & thanks again for all your reviews._

_(19.08.06)_


	10. Treachery

**  
10. Treachery**

Before the image of the ruins of the Kamakura fort across the valley had left her mind, the stories of what exactly conspired that fateful day swirled around Nara and Kyoto like the presence of a tengu. While Aiyo took all the stories at face value, some explanation was required as to the curious behaviour of Sesuke Asano after the victory.

The whole story of the Asano's epic triumph over the Kamakura family went something like this:

On the evening before the attack, Sesuke was said to have finalized details of the exact area of the assault and men required for a confident attack. His views were readily accepted by the generals, who (like Aiyo) considered him along the likes of a Yoshitsune, a brilliant tactical hands-on warrior who was definitely going to win the war for them. But his plan was rejected by the great Lord Hidetoshi Asano, his very own brother, because the great Lord's decisions were not to be changed, especially not at the eleventh hour. The generals and servants were dismissed; some said they argued, not as lord and general, but as brothers. Sesuke's frustration at his brother's position must have transpired from the threshold then, because he stormed out of the great Lord's presence incensed and unwavering.

After Aiyo had left on her dangerous solo mission, Sesuke – not the great Lord Asano – led ten thousand samurai, plus a thousand militia men armed with the wonderful fire cannons into the valley, anticipating the signal Aiyo was going to give. It was a short waiting time for battle, many of them said, perhaps just an hour or less. But the men were unnerved with visions of ghosts, spirits, tengu and Buddhist deities, supposedly appearing to the men repeatedly at one time.

Once the signal was given, there began the massacre of the Kamakura town. The fort was breached with ease, the artillery immobilized and, at the point in time when Aiyo surmised she had been fighting the samurai in the fort, Abott Jigo's riflemen fired volley after volley at the fort, killing anyone who might have been out in the open. It appeared to be a cautious twist of luck that she had been indoors at that time.

And, without so much as an effort, the mighty forces of the Lord Asano crushed their great Kamakura rivals, the filthy family of royal lap dogs who had caused them to fall out of favour with the imperial court.

From Hiojo's narration also, another separate, personal picture of the battle took form. It was Hiojo who had cornered the vile child-killer, the sinister murderer Seiya Kamakura, the man with the sword which killed her father, led all her siblings to commit _seppuku_ and who was the cause of all her hardship and suffering in the guest house. Hiojo, driven by his anger, cut the veteran samurai in half with one strike. In a true victor's fashion, he severed the head, to be given to Sesuke as a trophy, before defiantly hacking the body into pieces as one would prepare sashimi for a family.

"I did what was needed to be done," Hiojo told her, a succinct sense of purpose in his voice which she had not heard before. "And because of it, our family honour has finally been restored."

But even in the wake of that victory – after all the stories subsided, the praise from Sesuke worn off, the verbal admiration from the Abott Jigo, and the latent respect from many of the men for her extreme courage, borne by the rumours that she defeated five Kamakura samurai single-handedly – things did not change, and Aiyo felt the same as before, if not more restless. Had all she was out to accomplish in her brief, liberated life been settled? Had she gotten what her dark, undecided heart wanted most – revenge?

Sesuke, being both a warrior and a master of the court lifestyle, knew very well how to flatter those above him. In a 'gift' to the Emperor, with a note accusing his former servant of rebellion, Sesuke preserved the head of Seiya Kamakura in a deep-flavoured local sake, and sent it off to Kyoto in a lacquer box with the Asano inscription on it. Aiyo viewed it with a touch of distaste, although this was supposed to be final humiliation of her father's killer.

Apparently, at the moment, there was something more in Aiyo's mind than living for revenge.

* * *

In the fitful months of winter that followed, the thousands of samurai loyal to Sesuke returned to the villagers around Nara and the great temple to tend to their families, withering because of the wars in the region. The poor, both beggars and lepers, arrived at the temple in droves; Aiyo had obtained Sesuke's blessing to give them refuge in the quarters not occupied by the Asano family. Meanwhile, the villagers and townsfolk likewise began to prepare for a winter without war, and as usual, the monks and abbots continued their duties in the temple, regardless of the seasons and lowly human conflicts which, now absent, would not have taken away a single strand of their pleasure in their path towards divine enlightenment _anyway_, Aiyo voiced to herself. 

She continued to practice her swordsmanship and her skills, this time with Hiojo's encouragement. With nothing to do outdoors during the bitter winter, she kept herself occupied in the halls and empty prayer rooms, attempting to learn sword-plays and moves by herself, although she still was most familiar with her iron fan and the needle dagger which she kept hidden in her robes. _These swords and blades were designed for men_, she mused throughout her self-training, noting how difficult it was to even sheath a katana or to throw a spear straight. She agreed these weapons were troublesome, but she did not want to feel helpless when she needed to battle samurai again.

Being the only female occupant of the temple which was not waiting on Lord Asano also kept her wary of her surroundings, and the politics of men with many contrasting agendas kept hidden away.

And more than ever now, although she did not tell anyone, she felt a strange sense of foreshadowing, of something to come – an unclear vision, which she felt every time she walked to the window of her quarters, and remembered seeing the tengu months back.

Aiyo lost count of the months where the long winter persisted, but sometime in between those months the temple's occupants began to get worked up again. Two important people would be Lord Asano's guests during the winter months in Nara: a nephew with whom Sesuke was familiar and close with, and an imperial envoy who wanted to congratulate the elder Asano, whose health, Aiyo observed, was getting worse and worse.

"Why visit during winter?" she asked Hiojo.

"Because it is the time when the host can extend his warmest welcome, to make a guest feel at home in the most foul weather," he replied.

But despite the matter-of-fact reply from her brother, she could sense something else. She could almost read him like a book now, given his wry smiles, inattentive eyes and the slightest of frowns.

"Is there something else to all this?" she questioned him, more direct, faking a tone of worry.

Hiojo glanced at her sister. "You will see. Sesuke has instructed us not to tell anyone. But you can read the signs already, can you not?"

A slight indignation shot through Aiyo, at not being in Sesuke's supposed inner circle despite all she had sacrificed for the young Asano. _Getting inside an enemy fort and nearly getting killed by an enemy samurai clearly was not enough. _And as usual, Hiojo was deliberately being vague. What signs?

"Could you be more specific? We are brother and sister, aren't we?"

The answer was direct enough. "Sesuke and his brother are not getting along very well."

Aiyo tried to mull over the revelation, already adding to the prior knowledge of their argument hours before the Kamakura attack. But her brother cut her thoughts sarcastically: "So since we're the only peace-loving siblings here, we should set an example to them."

* * *

Just like Hiojo predicted, the arrivals came to the Great Temple in the middle of winter, with great pomp and ceremony. Sesuke's younger nephew, Kira Asano, was a dashing warrior clad in armour, accompanied with an entourage of 100 men, waving banners and ready to draw arms. Sesuke and Kira embraced like lost brothers. Later Aiyo did not see them for several days, as they were in Sesuke's quarters almost daily. 

But when they did meet, and when Aiyo caught a full, informal glimpse of him, she noticed how young he was, and how he possessed an aura of complete control which dominated people in his presence.

"Kira, may I introduce you to Lady Eboshi, the sister of one of my most loyal samurai," Sesuke gave the introductions. "She is quite a warrior in her own way."

Aiyo actually felt flattered at the comment as she bowed as in the custom. "You are too kind, my lord."

Kira in turn returned the greeting. "I am grateful for your courtesy, my lady."

"My cousin is the local magistrates of one of the provinces further north, near Fuji. And he has always been, well, the wayward relative."

"What he means is I was an illegitimate child of the family," Kira explained, without any tone of embarrassment or shame, "exiled and banished by the family to the north. But this cousin of mine has allowed me to prove myself, and I return his favour, although not many are too delighted with my presence here."

Aiyo realised she had not seen the great Lord Asano, Sesuke's brother and the absolute head of the family, during the welcome ceremony.

"I hope I will see you soon, my lady?" he added in a wistful tone, as Sesuke gestured him on to view the rest of the Great temple.

_Such a gentleman_, thought Aiyo.

* * *

After Kira, the emissary from the Emperor arrived. This time the great Lord Asano was out in full regalia, escorted by his retainers and servants, wearing linen robes swashed with red and white, the colours of the Asano house. He looked paler, less cheerful than the last time Aiyo saw him; yet as the Lord of the Asano house, he carried himself with a title of pride and honour, more so in the light of the recent victory and with a sword and scabbard adorned by his side. 

He looked like someone who was trying too hard to be Sesuke.

Speaking of Sesuke, the rest of the Asano family, including Sesuke, Kira, his trusted advisers and tacticians, and retainers were all assembled behind the great lord, not one out of position and looking completely natural in their armour and weapons as they waited by the gates in the swirling snow to pay homage to a man sent by the Emperor (who was from the gods, blessed by Buddha, and so even his messenger should have due respect and service). Aiyo and her brother watched the procession from the sidelines, along with a hundred men of Sesuke's loyal army.

Horsemen bearing the gold banner of a rising sun gave a herald of the emissary's arrival, much more pompous and grand than that of a small, lowly local magistrate from the northern provinces. At each section of the entourage, armed samurai bearing either menacing looking lances and swords or arrows accompanied the men and women bearing gifts to the willing host. Apart from the samurai, the porters and gift-bearers and those carrying banners seemed to be arrayed with fur and then silk.

When the figure of a sedan chair finally made its way down the path to the waiting crowd, a herald was crying out: "Make way for the envoy from the Emperor! The Emperor of the rising sun and the child of Buddha! Pay homage! Pay homage!"

Out from the quarters on the sedan chair came three men: a wizened old man wearing religious robes like those of a high abbot, a middle-aged man wearing the robes of the royal court and his wife. The envoy from the Emperor looked around at the crowd, located Lord Asano, and made his way towards him.

With respect and protocol, Lord Asano bowed in one swift movement prostrate before the envoy. All those behind reciprocated the gesture of accepting members of the royal court, especially those of the Emperor. In similar fashion, Aiyo knelt and with her forehead kissing the biting cold ground covered with snow, she waited for the permission to rise.

"On your feet."

As everyone rose in a rumble of armour and a shuffling of feet, the crows waited for the envoy to speak.

"I am Yoshirute, cousin and envoy from the Emperor, and chief of the upper court."

The crowd seem to be abuzz, but the muttering almost ceased immediately. No doubt Aiyo knew everyone would be thinking about the same thing: it must be a matter of such great importance for someone related to the Emperor in the government to brave winter and come to Nara.

Lord Asano, with the help of his servants, ushered Yoshirute, the abbot and his wife into the main hall, as the crowd watching either followed or dispersed. Aiyo was gestured by her brother to follow the retainers and waiting servants into the hall blazing with fire and covered with carpets of fur over the tatami laid specially for this royal arrival. Once Lord Asano and his three guests were seated, servants placed a table filled stuffed with elegant lacquer-ware and tea before them.

But before Aiyo entered the hall, Hiojo caught her eye, and made a gesture. _There's something in my right hand, _he looked like he was saying. Aiyo nodded back. Yet, he tugged on the sleeve of her robe again, and when she did not respond to adequately, he tugged harder.

"What?" Aiyo mouthed.

His eyes shot to his right hand, hidden resolutely behind his back. Was he playing with her again. Aiyo was not going to stand for this – not now. She turned and made a move into the hall. But Hiojo caught up with her and his right hand rose to her breast, and slipped an object into the v-neck of her linen robes. Too confused than insulted, she felt for the object as he continued to walk inside as if nothing had happened; almost immediately she caught hold of it: her iron fan.

"What?" she mouthed again, this time to herself. _There was something amiss here._

The retainers and servants had ushered everyone into the hall, and the doors were shut, leaving close to a dozen of the envoy's armed guards outside. Aiyo, as it was customary, took her seat furthest to the left; the men were clustered in the middle, and at the head of them sat Sesuke, Kira and Abbot Jigo, who in turn backed Lord Asano as they entertained their royal guests.

She tried to seek out her brother in the midst of the assembly. Hiojo was almost diagonally across to her, in the centre of several of Sesuke's warriors. In his unusual fidgeting, he caught Aiyo's attention, mouthing something again. _Be watchful. _

What on earth was he trying to play at?

The required courtesies were to be observed, and once the usual banter was over with, Lord Asano and the envoy Yoshirute began to converse.

"The plight of the people, the welfare of the temple and the failure of the rice crop. These are matters the Emperor is concerned about north of the capital," Yoshirute announced.

Lord Asano bowed as if he had committed a grave mistake. "Some feuds from the time of our fathers needed to be resolved. I seek your pardon over such matters."

"War so near the capital is unthinkable," went the imperial abbot, as resolute as a dictionary of proverbs.

As the conversation continued, Aiyo noticed something odd: among Lord Asano's three so-called trusted men, Sesuke had gestured both to Kira and Abbot Jigo when the imperial scolding session began, but now that the envoy Yoshirute was now deep in a lecture about the people and the land, he was completely stock silent and attentive.

Then, out from his state of apparent obedience, Sesuke spoke, cutting the envoy's sentence short.

"The principle of the land and the people is certainly the Emperor's grave concerns, but as he is unable to be present to enforce his own royal decree, we are his substitutes, and we manage the land and the people as he should.

"And because you are now here in the land we have rightfully owned and fought for, you are subject to our decree."

A second of silence again, the hall filled with a tense air of confrontation, almost as if Sesuke's declaration had been spoken in his acrid, disgusted tone to the Emperor himself. Aiyo, who had been closing observing Sesuke, tried not to feel too surprised: he was getting good at staging such surprises – or stunts.

Lord Asano appeared to be in the motion of turning to say something to his three backers, when the imperial abbot spoke sternly: "Who gives you the right to speak to the envoy of the Emperor?"

Sesuke's reply was terse and taut with defiance like a rebellious child: "The house of Lord Asano gives itself the right."

At once, Sesuke and Kira were on their feet, two huge swords at their sides. At the threat to the imperial envoys, their guards and soldiers sprung into action, but the entire crowd in the hall leap at them, all swinging some kind of concealed weapon. Aiyo let her mind register what was going on for a moment – now she understood what Hiojo meant – tragically – and she ducked as the men of Sesuke and the envoy clashed.

In the complete and neatly ordered chaos, Aiyo squirmed out of the way of a samurai, who attempted to stamp her down, before succumbing to a strike from his opponent. She seized the fallen blade; she needed now to distinguish who was friend and foe. Much more comfortable with a blade now, she clashed with an imperial samurai at her corner of the room. Slashing away openly at her, Aiyo waited for an opening: she did not have the strength to match her opponent's blows, but she was fast enough to puncture his armour. Her well timed blow left him clutching his abdomen.

When he was bleeding and screaming in pain, Aiyo ran the blade through his chest, buckling slightly from the effort.

As the battle raged, the kind hosts turned traitors overpowered the guards, and now the attention was turned to Sesuke and Kira. The abbot, slain by Kira, was sprawled against the wall with one arm. Having fended off the guards, Sesuke dealt the fatal blow to the envoy Yoshirute, who had tried in vain to defend himself with a sword. His wife, like her husband, was dragged into the open and mutilated by Sesuke's blade.

And all through the massacre which reminded Aiyo of the battle with the Kamakura, Lord Asano sat in, almost unmoved at the violence.

And till Sesuke advanced on him with his blade, he did not speak either. But now the sight of his mutinous brother and cousin standing before him must have surely forced words from his mouth.

"Many apologies for this, brother," went Sesuke, with hardly a trace of remorse in his tone. "Don't tell me you did not see this coming."

"You-are-a-shame-to-the-entire Asano-family-for-this-treachery!"

These tough words barely escaped his mouth when Sesuke hacked him to pieces, starting from his face, with his blade.

_Treachery indeed. _Aiyo watched, hanging on to the bleeding blade, as Sesuke and Kira looked to their mutinous men, pocketed with slain samurai guards. How was this all part of things?

As if in answer to her question, a burst of shouting echoed from outside, catching everyon'es attention. A clash of blades and then the amassing shadows behind the paper screens of the doors meant more of the imperial samurais were coming. The men within the room seized whatever weapon they could find, preparing for the battle of their lives.

"Fire!"

But instead of the bulky frames of armoured samurai, bamboo arrows cut through the paper screens and into the Sesuke's men. One struck the warrior beside Aiyo, and he issued a startled cry of pain has she clutched the arrow shaft protruding out of his neck. As more arrows flew at them like bullets, the initial inertia of shock at behind defeated was gone, and the hall was sparked into a frenzy of chaos. Some men rushed at the screens towards the archers, some dashed out in the other direction. Both seemed to be foolhardy, as Aiyo knew the imperial samurai would immediately cut their escape off. Instead she caught sight of Sesuke and Kira fleeing through a door in the very front of the hall, and she followed without hesitation.

Scrambling into cover, the warrior behind her took an arrow to the face, and she found herself side by side with her brother again.

"When were you going to tell me that you and Sesuke you were going to attempt an assassination?" she asked him angrily.

"Soon, but Lord Kira thought you couldn't be trusted," he replied.

Rushing forwards through the corridor, her mind was not in the mood to register all of what Hiojo was saying. All she knew was that they were heading in the direction of the Great Temple and the training grounds were she had last tested that fire-cannon. But she caught enough of Hiojo's words to ask him: "Why?"

And she probably half knew Hiojo's answer: "Because you're a woman."

Shouts were coming both from in front and behind, and before Aiyo could realise what was happening, an imperial samurai broke through the window with his long-tipped spear – she had to dodge his strike – and ruthlessly impaled Hiojo by his shoulder. Acting on instinct, the hand with her iron fan flew to the assailant's face, while the other, still dumbly carrying the blade, leapt to the unarmoured thigh. The imperial samurai hardly let out a grunt, but when Hiojo recovered and severed his head with one swipe of his blade, he was done for.

Wounded but still sarcastic, Hiojo sought his sister for assistance in getting to his feet. "I should have supervised your training myself. Because I think you're getting better."

Too experienced to even respond to her brother's barb, she led him out into the open, out into the field where a flurry of men were preparing horses, provisions, weapons and fire-cannons. Aiyo realised her mind was now operating in a world of its own, because even with Hiojo's instructions, she did not flee or stand there confused like she thought she would, but she straightaway sought out Sesuke.

"Lord Sesuke!" she called as she approached him. He was now the head of the Asano house. He was being adorned with armour and ready to mount his horse. As they approached, he stared at them; there was a look in his face Aiyo could not interpret.

"You're wounded," he said to Hiojo, his eyes falling upon the bloody wound on his shoulder. Then he turned to Aiyo. "We have to go now. Leave everything and take only what you have in your hands. You stay with Abbott Jigo and his men, while Hiojo can ride with me."

"But Sesuke – my Lord, I can ride," Aiyo cut in.

"No, Abbott Jigo is managing the supplies. Their caravan is burdened and slow. They will need women to man the horses while they fight."

_Bastard. _Aiyo made sure her grip on her blade did not slip to Sesuke's throat.

"Lord Sesuke!" went a shout, and now Kira and a host of other lieutenants were riding toward him.

Sesuke's orders were planned to the detail and succinct: "My cousin, we will break up and regroup later to confuse the imperial samurai. Take four thousand of my samurai, those who are riding, and head north. Regroup once you reach Inda with the men there, and I will see you again at Minami. May you fly out safely.

"Daisen, Kaifu, I want you to take three thousand men, those who do not have horses, and retreat to the old Kamakura fort, and cover the caravans of Abbott Jigo and his men. If the heavens are smiling us, I will meet you at Minami also. You know the way.

"The rest of you will follow me. We will head straight for Minami to fortify the town and brace for the attack which surely must come. It is the last stronghold of the Asano family now that Nara has fallen into the hands of these Imperial robbers. Heaven guide you today, and take courage, for we have ten thousand miles of wilderness before us!"

The men and commanders obeyed Sesuke's words without protest. And as for Aiyo, she ran alongside unarmed men and women to the caravans preparing to leave. Arrows were already falling all around them, and children and monks alike were being hit as they boarded the unsteady carts. No time to waste. Aiyo mounted a horse whose rider had been shot and rode towards the head of the caravan speeding away towards the mountains.

* * *

******Notes: **_Again, many apologies for taking so long to come up with my chapters. The IMF Meetings & George Bush's visit to Singapore are both over, but I'm still tied up with a lot of admin and training work where I am, so I don't really have a lot of time to write. My interest in the story has also waned a bit: it's been a year since I watched the film, and slightly shorter before I embarked on this project. But I want to see it through, that's the most important thing._

_Story-wise, I will speed up the action a bit, and try out some techniques to prevent this story from falling into a bland chapter-by-chapter narrative. By the next chapter or so, we should be in familiar territory; I will also start to bring in the gods, wolves and San herself – soon. And I never forget: thanks for all your comments and critique._**__**


	11. Like Her Brother's Blood

**11. Like Her Brother's Blood  
**

He was wrapped up as tightly and smugly as a roll of sushi, but his pale face and stable eyes were almost immune to the fire. His coat and blanket was covered in a layer of fresh snow; but the snowflakes which fell untouched to his face could only linger there for a moment, before the heat from the fire forced them to merge into the beads of sweat slipping down his face.

The fire was the brightest and the biggest tonight – quite a rarity. The bitter, blasted cold out in the wilderness was not helping. But chiefly, one of Sesuke's retainers, the 'guardsman' of this ill-fated caravan, had told them to keep the fires small, for fear of attracting the attention of imperial samurai out on nighttime patrols. Slouched nearby, he was the only one apart from Hiojo who had a full blanket – for himself.

A scattering of men and women were wandering, or restlessly sitting by their pitiful fires, almost being buried in snow and risking hypothermia without the cover of the caravans to shield them from the wind. The accursed wind. Tonight, it had been blowing persistently without any sign of stopping. Abbot Jigo, who had the ability to tell the weather, told that idiot retainer it meant a possible storm was coming. And these were omens from heaven warning them about the two more days' of journey till Asano's stronghold at Minami.

As for Aiyo, she sat near her brother by the fire, watching him, observing his condition, and sometimes, gently stroking his forehead to ward of the demons in his sleep. His health had deteriorated rapidly over the few days' journey with the caravan. The wound at his shoulder began to fester, would not stop bleeding, and finally caught gangrene. The weather and poor meals worked against his injury. And finally stopping short of amputating his arm, Hiojo, the last male heir of the Eboshi family had fallen into a bloody flux, and had remained in that state for almost a day.

Watching the sweat trickle down her brother's face, Aiyo tried her best not to fall asleep, just in case he would suddenly arouse asking for food or water. The men, on the other side of the fire, were anxious too, but fatigue had overcome them, and many were neglecting their night watch and falling asleep. Then there were the other men: a leper and a novice samurai who could barely yield a sword, whom Daizen had assigned to protect her, after all _contributions_ to this caravan party.

In the dull reflection of the blade she had taken from an imperial samurai days earlier, Aiyo caught the fire dancing joyfully. She tried to clench her hands, only finding a cheerful ache as they crackled, almost like popsicles in this weather. Her mind was in a trance; this weather was as possessive as the terrain they were in. But more than ever, she was forcing herself to keep a straight face after the last six days of fierce fighting and near escapes.

And the dried blood stuck enthusiastically under her fingernails was proof of that ordeal.

* * *

"Abbot Jigo!" Aiyo rode up to the head of the caravans, where the Abbot was giving directions. "I heard you need some help!" 

Flustered for the first time, the wrinkled man stared at Aiyo for a full moment, as if he had not heard. But a shout brought him back to reality. He drew a machette from his stash of weapons and barked more orders.

"What can you do?"

"I can hold off the samurai," she replied.

"Listen, my Lady," he told her straight in the face." We don't have time for heroes now. I have twenty caravans of women, children, equipment and gunpowder. And two commanders to oversee these klutz samurai. Some of my men have set up a firing line ahead, but without cover they will be cut down as they reload…"

"Yes I see, Abbot. I will see you later."

Aiyo rode off a short distance from the lumbering, over-obvious caravan. The chaos of the fighting was starting to spill over into the hills. Sesuke and his band had departed one way, and Kira's men the other. The imperial samurai had also divided themselves evenly in hot pursuit on horseback, firing missiles as they went. But the trail of caravans, which had hardly covered the first rise, was too easy and clear a target: many of the remaining imperial samurai had sighted the caravan and were giving chase.

Sesuke's two commanders, Daisen and Kaifu, were unable to hold back the attacks. Their motley band of infantry outnumbered their opponents, but was getting defeated by the pure skill and ferocity of their imperial counterparts. Already, the imperial samurai had a wave of mounted infantry, and were firing their way past Daisen and Kaifu's men. Further upwind, at the crest of the hill, the caravan, plagued now by mounted attackers, was still struggling to clear the hill. And just out of sight, a line of gunners with their fire cannons were assembling for a volley.

And where was that idiot brother of hers?

Aiyo took in thwe situation for another moment, and then she was off, riding towards the falling ranks of samurai being led by Dausen and Kaifu.

The wind beating at her face as her horse approached, she steadied her blade. She was not used to holding a blade and riding on horseback; she was actually afraid of accidentally hurting the animal if she struck out at her quarry. All she had trained for was man-to-man combat – on the ground – with almost every weapon she could get her hand on. Now, on horseback, wielding a blade which was too heavy for the full support of her right hand, she felt unsteady, unconfident and ungainly. But she heaved a breath, and screamed as she charged at the nearest samurai in imperial colours.

It was the horse, not the blade that did the most damage. The man, taken aback by the sight of a lady on horseback, could not steer his own steed away, and could merely yell as Aiyo charged. To her dismay, she overestimated the reach of her blade, and missed the man's arm with her mistimed swipe. But before the man could react with a return strike, both horses collided; the man's poor horse was hit in the face. It shied, reared briefly on its hind legs, clearly startled. Aiyo turned fast enough to see it throw the rider off its back; the man fell awkwardly on his left knee and the unsteady horse did the rest, accidentally trampling him.

Still too busy fighting each other, both the ranks of samurai had not realised a woman had joined the battling armies. Aiyo pulled her startled horse under her reins, and without thinking, reeled towards the path of another imperial samurai.

The samurai, however, saw her and without changing course, readied his arrow on a massive longbow he had kept hidden. _I missed that, _Aiyo's mind shouted at her. _If he fires, I'm dead. _

_This is it._

While he steadied himself, Aiyo could only think of dodging the shot: her horse was going to cut into the path of the archer, and she was closing distance too rapidly to avoid the shot. _Heaven help me, _she thought aloud.

At the crucial moment, Aiyo swung low in a bid to avoid the archer's shot. And her horse, feeling the tug on the reins, was beside the archer in just two strides. The surprised archer fired his arrow right into the horse's back; Aiyo felt the wind of the arrow and the sickening sound of impact, cutting through flesh to hit bone. The horse let out an awful screech, and Aiyo let go of the reins, almost allowing the wounded animal to slip from under her, and she and the animal smashed into the path of the archer.

"Baca!" she swore, and then the writhing horse let out a series of kicks which sent Aiyo flying back into the snow. There was only one thing in her mind as she herself up, sore from the hit in her chest. _Still, better the animal then me. _

The archer was still down, pinned under the weight of both animals when Aiyo approached him. She did not feel as guilty or uncomfortable as she thought she would have felt months ago, say during the Kamakura battle, at thought of killing a helpless man. But the man was now completely helpless. With one of his arrows, she took a swipe at her, cutting through her mangled robes at her knees. Aiyo swore again, and then brought the blade down on the archer's face. And when the cut seemed insufficient to be fatal, she thrust it into his exposed neck.

"Hey!"

Aiyo was barely catching her breath, when an arrow fell right beside her. Turning hastily, she sighted more imperial samurai approaching, but this time her own side had spotted her, and several samurai were dispatching the archers in open combat. She quickly got to her feet, got her bearings and ran towards who she thought looked like friendly samurai.

"Where are your commanders?' she said, gasping and panting.

"Over there," he motioned to only one man on horseback. "We are not doing well. Escape, my Lady, while you can."

"The Abbot has a plan," she told them, still taking in huge gasps of air and now conscious of her blood soaked yukata. "Lure the imperial samurai up to that hill. There are men with cannons waiting to fire there as soon as the distance is right."

"Yes, my Lady," went the samurai.

She found it strange why he complied without protest. As the samurai ran off, Aiyo saw the fallen archer's horse was back on its feet again. Casting a sorry look at her own steed kicking and bleeding heavily, she mounted her enemy's horse. It obeyed her; now she needed to get to hill.

Riding steadily with arrows criss-crossing behind her, she rode up to where the last two carts of the caravan where clearing the rise. The caravan was leaking men, having been shot down by archers raiding them on both sides. She paused long enough to see an arrow rip through the covering tarp, and hit the back of one of the Abbot's men who was manning the horses.

_I have to do something! If I just head straight up to the hill, these poor souls are going to die. _

Her mind racing, she brought her horse into a fierce, speeding gallop towards the last cart, already punctured with so many arrows it resembled a clumsy porcupine. Two imperial samurai on horseback were in the process if fighting the last two men, who were trying to steady and calm the tired horses. All four did not see her ride straight up to them –

Her blade as firm as ever in her right hand, she took a quick estimate of its reach, then flung the entire effort of her arm out at the nearest samurai, with metal smashing against the samurai's armour. Reeling up and riding back, the samurai did not seem to even feel the force of the blow. But as his horse lurched forward, he slumped and fell from his saddle and ontothe snow, the gnash in his arnour instantly visible.

She brought her horse around again. The last samurai suddenly saw that he was outnumbered, but he did not realise the man on horseback was not a warrior, but a woman. Uttering a curse, she flung a half-hearted swipe at the nearest man and departed back down the rise for reinforcements.

Aiyo rode to the two men. They appeared exhausted, and bleeding.

"The heavens bless you, my Lady, for rescuing us!" one of them told her, gratefulness spreading across his tired face.

"They attacked us, and killed the women and children before we could stop them. But only we survived."

At a closer look, she saw the bandages around the first man's arm and face was not for wounds. The hand carrying his blade was missing a finger. _What was this man doing out here? _He even looked vaguely familiar...

"My lady, don't worry about us, we'll manage," he assured her. Aiyo caught a glimpse, but she did not want to peer any further into the cart's interior. "Retreat to where Abbot Jigo has organised his line."

Remembering her original motive, she acknowledged the men's efforts, and took the reins, ordering the horse up the steep incline to the crest of the hill. Here, she was free from arrows creeping up from behind, but the mutilated bodies of men, women and children from the caravans lay scattered on the snow like debris from an earthquake. A cart lay abandoned, its horses dying, and its occupants overrun by imperial samurai, who in turn had been brought down by the Abbot's men.

At the crest of hill, men had already lined up in neat ranks with their fire-cannons, and with most of the caravan safely behind this line of men, Jigo was busy supervising them. Approaching them as such speed, some of the men raised their weapons.

"It's me! Lady Eboshi!" she called out, and at once their fears were eased. She quickly dismounted and raced to the Abbot's side. "What's happening?"

The Abbot had regained his serene, almost aloof composure, as he replied: "Daizen and Hiojo are retreating in this direction. The imperial samurai have overpowered them. There are about eighty men spread across the crest of this hill with the cannons, waiting for my order to fire."

Before she could respond, an abrupt sense of weariness took her, and she closed her eyes shut to steady herself. _Fighting samurai was tougher than I thought, but I must still hold my ground in front of this man. _

"My lady?" Jigo turned his attention to her.

"Where's my brother?" she answered back.

Jigo squinted at the mass of figures several hundred metres down the hill. "I think he went to assist the commanders to fight off those imperial dogs. Judging by the fighting, there are still almost a hundred of them down there. I cannot tell who is friend or foe. But when they advance up the slope, my men will fire upon anything that does not bear Asano's colours."

Aiyo saw that some men scurrying up the hill still had red and white flags. But Jigo was right: their objective was just to stop their enemy's advance.

She saw men hauling the fire-cannons out of a caravan. "Give me one of that," she ordered the porter. "And some flint too. Now!"

"My lady?" Jigo looked on, although he felt he already knew what she was going to say.

"Abbot, I will take charge on those to the east," she gestured to the extreme right of the line, where men were still scrambling to take up positions. "We must make sure no imperial samurai gets past our line."

"But – "

She was off already, lugging the heavy cannon behind her. It was so heavy it sunk into the snow at times, and when she was fully bearing its weight, she felt _she_ was sinking into the snow. Nevertheless, she reached her position in time and, propping the weapon on the rise and taking aim at the men running up the hill, she grasped the piece of flint tightly, hoping the weather would not stop her from starting a spark.

"Aim high," she ordered those nearest to her, "we don't want to hit our own warriors when they have fought so bravely for us." Then, noticing the Abbot's men rushing women to safely, she called out after them: "You there! Give the women cannons! We need as much firepower here as possible!"

The men were all attuned to follow Jigo's orders to fire, so she would do him a favour and not usurp him at this critical command. As several of the women set their cannons on the rise beside her, Aiyo watched as the figures coming closer started to bear the succinct colours of friend and enemy: those in tattered red-and-white, being hounded by horsemen with fresher colours of gold and the unmistakable imperial symbol.

Jigo's call to take aim echoed off the hilltop. The piece of flint still in her hands, she struck it twice, but it failed to light. Frustrated, she struck the flint again, and it glowed a dying red.

"Fire!"

Aiming past the first bunch of men to those still on horseback, she brought the glowing flint into shaft… she remembered she had to keep it steady before it – BANG! To her consolation, Aiyo did not feel the shaft throw her back. She knew how to cushion the impact of the recoil after the practices with Jigo and his men.

A volley of shots shook the ground, and the acrid stench of gunpowder and iron engulfed Aiyo momentarily. Smoke was still streaming freely from her fire-cannon.

As the smoke cleared, a cheer went out from the men assembled on the hill. Down below, peering through the smoke which refused to clear, the last few of their defenders were climbing towards them. Behind them, in dark splashes of charred snow and earth, and horribly disfigured bodies, the imperial samurai had in one second suffered huge losses. Hardly more than a handful were left standing; those remaining were already on the retreat – at last.

* * *

They were in a greater dilemma than before. They may have defeated almost three hundred of the best trained imperial samurai, but their almost half their fighting men were wounded or dying. One of the commanders, Kaifu, was killed accidentally in the volley of cannon fire, as were two-thirds of his men, the stragglers behind. The caravan had just seven carts remaining, the bulk of them carrying the equipment and ammunition for the cannons, rather than food for the men. 

Jigo and the samurai commander Daizen, a retainer and loyal subject of Sesuke, found themselves the two unlikely leaders, in charge of a mixture of families, women whose husbands were among the dead and burdensome, wounded samurai.

While the two settled their differences in how to reach Lord Kira's stronghold at Minami, Aiyo sought out her brother from among the wounded. Dozens of samurai were being treated by a bunch of monks, also followers of Jigo, and they appeared to be the ones most at ease with the situation, diligently attending to the needs of the injured.

She found her brother on horseback, held stable by two of his men. He had escaped being hit by friendly fire, but he looked seriously injured.

"Get down from there," Aiyo ordered him. "You're in no condition to ride."

His two men helped him down, where he gave her one of his sarcastic smiles: "To what do I owe such care and love from my younger sister?" he asked her. "Haven't you seen enough suffering with me around?"

A stray thought entered Aiyo's head, but she shook it away immediately, focusing instead on helping her brother to the ground. He winched as she pressed on his left shoulder – the wound from the spear was still fresh, and bleeding.

"Get him to that monk," he told the two men who had come to his aid. Hiojo could walk, but only barely, and even then he stumbled with the pain of his wound written across his face. Right now, the thought skipped around her head again, but she had no more blade in her hand and she was not entirely sure about him now that she was clearly in control.

* * *

Over the next few days, the group plodded through the wilderness, with the samurai commander Daizen in charge. They were told they were heading straight for Minami to the east, but they were taking several detours through the wilderness to lose any imperial samurai who might be in pursuit. Wounded samurai were packed in the carts, and tended to by the few women and children left. Those fit enough, walked, and Aiyo, accompanying her limping brother, rotated between the two. 

Sticking close to her brother, she began to understand many things: she understood he was some kind of retainer as well, with some kind of rank which allowed him to exercise a measure of control over his few men. Hiojo, despite his bad limp, still had the respect of the remaining samurai there, and when talking to Daizen, he did not offer him any title, but simply addressed their in-charge as "Daizen" or "There's something I need to tell you". Aiyo supposed that he was also some kind of samurai commander, who had yet to be given full powers by Sesuke.

But if there was one thing she understood well, her brother's condition was not too good.

And if it was not the lack of treatment (the monks said they required herbs, and were always scavenging the dead, lifeless shrubs for any), it was the ghastly weather. Travelling through the night and resting only at noon, they endured icy winds and frequent bursts of sleet and storm. The samurai in-charge said winds and storms would cover their tracks with fresh snow. It was easy for them to say; they had horses.

After four days of rigourous travel, their group had dwindled by a third. Many of the wounded samurai had passed, succumbing to their injuries. Several children starved. Others froze. Food had become a problem; now every time they stopped for rest, the only cart carrying food would be swamped with people. Aiyo stuck close to two other people: Jigo, who was almost self-sufficient in finding food, and her leper friend from their flight from Nara, who was always guaranteed of food from the other monks – because he was a leper.

Then there was the wilderness.

From the start, Aiyo kept away from the trees; as she could see a sky not interrupted by dead, mirthless branches, she knew she was safe. The forest of skeletal, disquieted trees was strange and mysterious. Certainly, she was not too afraid of wild animals, but she had seen – things. Just like the tengu on the night before the attack on the Kamakura fort, spirits plagued her dreams, and sometimes when she was awake.

Aiyo could remember once, huddled with her brother in the bitterest cold of the night, being jolted awake by a certain wave of feeling – a certain untimely shiver made her feel like she was being observed. Snapping open her eyes, and feeling the full force of the winter night, her vision came into focus just in time: something, with its eyes blazing yellow and walking upright. Upon seeing it was being watched too, the dark shadow took off back into the trees.

From that night onwards, Aiyo never slept facing the deep darkness of the forest.

The wilderness held its own power, and she knew it had something to do with their pathetic state. The sense that these spirits and ghouls and beasts were hovering so close, following their gang of sickly samurai, only because they had a slim chance of reaching their destination?

Yet there were still worse things to come. And she was going to find out how bad things could be.

* * *

It would be quite hard to forget, even though Aiyo had almost lost count of how many days they had been traversing the wilderness. In the midst of the desolate landscape of leafless trees bordered by the greater pale green shadow of deeper, wilder forests, there came a point when Hiojo could hardly walk. His limp had become so pronounced and so bad that it seemed his crutches were giving him more support than his feet. He leaned heavily against a tree, fumbled with his crutches and collapsed. 

"Hiojo!" Aiyo immediately went forward to catch him. The heat from him almost burnt her. Setting him up on his crutches again, her leper friend set him up with his bandaged hands.

"He is getting very sick," he told her. With his un-bandaged hand he pushed aside the robe and took a look at the violent red and yellow crust forming on Hiojo's shoulder. "This accursed wound is not healing. We have to put him in the caravan, or he will not have enough energy to make it to Minami."

The two of them ordered the cart nearest cart to stop, and making space among the feet and bodies of men and women also too weak to walk, they sat Hiojo down, upright in the corner.

"Hiojo, brother. Stay here and you will be well," she told him, wiping his forehead with her sleeve. It was only then she realised she was calling him by his name.

"We will be in Minami in no time."

But later in the day, when the snow had stopped falling and the sun squeezed some of its light through the furiously overcast sky, the caravan crossed a huge clearing. The road led through there, and in the fresh snow, Aiyo noticed the footprints, tracks and impressions of what seemed to be an army, scattered and very recent, across the entire clearing. Like her, the other travelers were unnerved, but Daizen insisted that this was the pathway which they needed to travel.

"They are just tracks!" he argued with Jigo. "Let's get moving."

As if foreshadowing something, the threadbare woods were absolutely silent and still.

Daizen led the small group, with just thirty samurai standing and less than ten of them on horses, back through the woods. This time the ground was descending, but a sharp rise cut off their view from the east. The woods here were also dead, but the shrub cover was thick and dense. Following the samurai's lead, the company quietly tread through these woods. Aiyo did not like these woods; she felt the place was both empty and crowded at the same time.

But from then on things happened so fast: a muffled shout, the sound of a horse screeching, and the mounted samurai just several metres in front of Aiyo fell off his horse, an arrow protruding cleanly from his jaw. And before Aiyo knew it arrows were whistling through the woods.

Ambush!

"Imperial samurai!" she could easily recognise Jigo's voice.

"Protect the women and children!"

"Eeeahhh!"

As the shouting grew louder, an arrow whizzed past her and struck the thin cloth covering of the caravan. The driver had been hit and he was writhing in pain on the ground. But the worse thing was: where were the archers?

Aiyo could see nobody. _Nobody_.

Another samurai fell, and from the direction of the arrow, she could deduce they were coming from the east, from above the rise. Quickly, she ran towards it; she had no weapon, but at least knew that if the archers were firing from above, she would be more difficult to hit under their noses.

Her leper friend was running towards her with a fire-cannon. "My lady, take this," he threw it into her arms hastily. "Follow me!"

Another volley of arrows was flying from above, and everyone not covered by the shadow of the rise or the carts was hit. Even the women and children within the caravans were cut through. _Curses! Curses! Heaven curse them! _She was breathing heavily now, and almost knee deep in snow as she trailed her leper friend towards the source of the arrows. Even when he turned sharply to scale the small slope of the rise, she followed without complaint. _My life's at stake here._

"There!" he pointed to a set of archers firing from the cover of the trees. They had scaled half the rise. There were hardly more than ten of them, bearing imperial colours, and were now distracted by Daizen and his men, who were coming from the other end of the rise.

Automatically, she requested flint from her leper friend. And once she had the lighted stump in her hands, she lit the ammunition and felt the cannon go off with a blast of iron and smoke and fire. Her leper friend fired once more. Her first shot took one of the archers in the chest; igniting the flint again, she fired once more time before the archers caught aim of them. It struck right in the centre of them, scattering them and causing the thin but dense scrub to catch fire.

"One more," her leper friend let loose his third shot, and it fell with an explosion behind the archers, causing several to get thrown forward. He lowered his cannon once he saw that Daizen and Jigo had begun to engage the archers in melee.

But as they were set to climb down the rise and celebrate their marksmanship, they saw that more imperial samurai were pouring out from the _opposite_ side of the woods, taking those below by surprise.

"Up there!" one of them shouted and shot an arrow which split through the centre of them.

"The girl is mine!"

"Now until you kill me, idiot!" Aiyo shouted back.

Her leper friend let loose his fourth round at the samurai scaling the rise to get up to them, and sent two of them tumbling down. Aiyo took aim at the nearest one and stuck her flint to into the firing hole, but to her horror, her gun failed to fire. The flint was not burning or –

"I'll have your head, you wretch!"

His first swipe was too fast for Aiyo to withdraw from, and as she pulled away, an immediate pain forced her to clap her hand to her forehead. The blade had sliced a straight cut there. The next swipe as aimed at cutting her in two, but with the solid shaft of the fire-cannon she parried the attack, and struck the samurai square in his chest with the blunt edge.

No effect. _Baca_. His armour was much stronger than the one she fought the last time without a weapon. As the samurai advanced, she blocked the next strike as hard as she could with her cannon, her mind still racing for an alternative…

"Give up! You'll die here anyway!" the samurai leered at her. They had now squared off together, oblivious to the fighting in the background.

"Pigheaded dog," she retorted.

Enraged, the samurai charged at her, but she was not fooled. Aiyo quickly dodged the charge, and with the metal head of the cannon, hit his exposed fingers. A brief sound of bones cracking, and the samurai was doubling up in pain. Yet before Aiyo could find something to light her flint with, he came at her again. The attack too quick to avoids, she was thrown to the ground.

Her mind was screaming and fighting her weariness. _Get up get up get up! _

But then there it was – a eroded rock protruding out from the ground. Like lightning, she struck the flint on the rock, and it responded with a red glow. _Come on come on come on_. Flipping over, she turned as she lighted her cannon – her attacker was bringing the blade down on her back when it fired.

"Eeeeeaaahhh!"

It missed, but grazed his face so badly that it appeared as if his right half of his face had been mauled by a wolf. His hands went straight to his charred, burning face, dropping the blade – and Aiyo knew there was only one thing left to do: she seized the blade and lobbed off the man's head.

Her leper friend was nowhere to be seen, but the rain of arrows had ceased, and gunfire was bouncing off the trees. She quickly recovered her fire-cannon and raced back to the caravan.

Just in time too. To the noise of gunfire from her leper friend and other women, the imperial samurai were retreating from where they came, dropping like flies along the way.

* * *

She could almost see the samurai falling in the fiery glow of the fire. The fierce blade which she had seized from the samurai was still at her side, the remnant of dried blood scarcely present along its edge. Her leper friend, was asleep, but clutching his fire-cannon tightly. Daizen, whom Aiyo wished had died in the ambush for his stupidity, was blocked from her vision by whatever men he had left. 

And Hiojo was still just within reach. Eyes shut, breathing irregularly, his face flushed with pain.

Sometimes, staring into space like this, Aiyo would think she was mediating. Not because she believed heaven would be merciful enough to heal her brother; she had crossed another threshold of pain – first having borne the physical torture of her past and now, with that era over, the emotional agony of losing her last surviving family member and her only connection through to Sesuke's thick-headedness. But for tonight, when it seemed Hiojo was passing into the other world, she felt utterly blank, wiped so clean that not even grief could reach her.

When the moon was high in the night sky, Jigo and one of his monks came over to Hiojo. At first they thought she was sleeping, being so still, but she motioned to them, and they quietly spoke a few words as the monk attended to her brother.

Jigo made it very brief. "Your brother may not make it through tonight," he spoke slowly, like to a little child. Even at the great temple, Aiyo never heard him speak so gently before. "Maru will stay with him, but you must also try to help him get through the night. If he survives tonight, he will live. But if not…"

The man left her with his brow furrowed. Hiojo and him had not been close, but when he was still capable of leading, Jigo certainly preferred him to Daizen's overbearing but confusing orders.

She leaned in close to her brother. Maru the monk was massaging his hands, and with a Buddhist amulet also chanting prayers.

"There's no need for supplication. If this is his time, then let him," Aiyo said. She had Hiojo's fifteen years of learning to be a samurai under the Asanos in mind.

"Brother," she whispered to him. "Can you hear me?"

He was so still it was as if he was already dead. Only his fever was strong.

"Hiojo, my brother, I'll let you know its fine. Your taunts are fine. And I forgive you for the way you treated me from the start, for selling me to become a tayu, and for all your insults," she said, plainly but keeping her head and eyes clear. The monk was listening, and he continued to mouth his chants. She caught sight of her blade again, and the way the fire, now much smaller, was reflecting and flying off it.

"And if you die tonight, I promise I will avenge everyone who has looked down on our family, including the Asanos if I must."

Her voice was dead calm and completely level. But strangely her conscience was not overweighed with guilt. She did not know how to react, but she felt she was doing the right thing.

As the moon continued to waste the night away, Hiojo's breathing became almost soundless, and eventually his pulse became too faint to feel. With each hour that passed, Maru the monk shook his head, and kept up his chanting, this time with a small copy of the sutras in his hands. Even with both of them watching him, it was hard to tell when Hiojo actually passed into the other realm. But just before dawn, he was completely still. Maru the monk placed his prayer beads over him and as Aiyo sat, with a completely serene look in her face, thinking on all the fights, ambushes and deaths within the last seven or so days, there was nothing much she could say or do. Hiojo did not need an eulogy from her, only from the monks and their mantras.

After the prayer rites ended, it was already dawn, and Jigo stood beside her as his monks lowered the body into a shallow grave which they had dug. The elder man, who was almost her second mentor, was chanting too; was he actually that religious? Daizen, who was ready with his horse to leave, watched from a distance; she knew he was too scared to disturb the ceremony.

Was this how her father died, so far away from home and his wife and son and daughters? Covering him with a blanket she lined pine needles along the grave, so it did not look like an empty ditch. The monks were still chanting; her leper friend stood on her other side, and as they bowed to the body in the grave, a sword at his side and this was the only burial throughout their journey where there was weeping. But it did not come from Aiyo. Her face was fixed at a point beyond her brother's fallen body, somewhere beyond, as if in a dream, serenely stone-faced and fighting against her remaining emotions not to shed tears.

Because she did not shed tears at her mother and sisters' _seppuku_.

While the monks covered the grave with earth and marked it with the sheath of Hiojo's sword, she kept the Eboshi family sword – the short blade which Hiojo so enjoyed playing with during their first trip to Nara as a child – tightly at her waist. How were her ancestors looking at her now? Hiojo had joined their ranks, and how would they see her since there was no more Eboshi to pass down the family line? These thoughts only entered her head for a moment: as soon as the grave was filled, she sat there, beside her brother, for a long time, neither sobbing nor speaking, but with her head in her hands.

And no one dared to interrupt her.

* * *

When she did rise and start walking, only her leper friend was there. He was talking to several samurai, men she had seen earlier, wearing Asano's emblem and colours very visibly. The group of six men stopped speaking and went silent as she approached. 

Then one of them bowed and held out his blade to her, sheathed in its case.

"My lady, you were Hiojo Eboshi's only surviving relative," he said, his tone as a servant would talk to his master. "As we have served under his charge and leadership as samurai for many years, so we would continue in service to you, Lady Eboshi."

The others followed suit, and when she nodded they stood at attention. It was as if she had closed her eyes in grief and then when she opened them, the world had become new again. Walking with the blade that gave her new power, she walked towards the caravans that were already saddled and leaving, her men fanning out, following in every step as if she was royalty.

A small smile caught her face. _The single-minded duty of these men. _And in the process she caught her leper friend's eye:

"Samurai," he sighed.

But such things needed to be observed – for now.

* * *

**Notes: **_I'll be in Malaysia with my church youth group for the whole of next week, running some youth and children programmes with another church in a village in Melaka state, so I thought I should get this chapter out before I disappear and lose thought of what I want to write. It's my longest chapter so far, and I think the last few paragraphs were especially difficult to write. I've not killed off a lot characters in my previous stories – I think this story raises the standard one level higher._

**To Soapfiction: **_If you haven't read the message I addressed to you on my blog, let me summarise what happened last week. After reviewing your story, my parents (who are also Miyazaki fans) came back with the entire collection of his works. Apparently they were having some grand opening discounts at a new shopping centre. So now, believe it or not, I'm the owner of Mononoke-Hime, on DVD, and yes, I have already watched it once to try and get ideas and inspiration, and it worked. I finished this chapter in 3 days._

_I watched the movie (this is my third time) with a particular eye to details surrounding the Lady Eboshi character. It struck me that, while I'm writing here about a hero, Miyazaki original interpretation makes her come across as both sinister and ambitious. I can finally – after one bloody year – understand why a lot of writers in this fanfic community portray her character as negative: they follow what's already given to them in the movie. However, if you are reading this and you are a big fan of maybe San or Ashitaka, I'm not trying to sugar-coat the Eboshi character, I'm just attempting to tell how she became like that. Watching the movie again has given me a direction to work towards. And of course, credit to Mr. Miyazaki for his great characterization._

_, thanks for the review too. Please keep them coming. _


	12. The Strategy

**  
12. The Strategy**

To the locals, uneducated in samurai lore and tradition, the township of Minami was just another samurai fort, raised by the Minamoto shogunate or one of its corrupt district officials after the first great war. It was a town overshadowed by mountains which lacked the heavenly divinity of Fuji further south, and the town was on a steep rise which was tiresome to trudge up to. The fact that it had been occupied by so many armies of so many different loyalties meant very little to them. For they, although being just mere farmers and herders of cattle, had also been under the yoke of many of these oppressive and unrighteous rulers whose design was to work them to death and live off the land. So now that the great Lord Sesuke Asano had arrived to the fort of his great brother the Lord Kira Asano, it was an event of token significance, not worth missing a days' work in the field.

But to the Asanos and their retainers, fleeing the wrath of the Emperor and feeling rebellious, Minami was only place left to hold out from the Emperor's lap-dogs. A predecessor of Kira Asano (but not of the line of the great and noble Lord Asano) had seized the town from the Minamotos close to a hundred years ago in a civil uprising, and had successfully defended it from all attack. It was a place of family pride and honour, the summer lodging of all the Asano great Lords before conflict with the royal family began.

It was also a place of strategic importance to the Asanos. Situated atop a rise and cut off by mountains to the north and east, it would take an army of thousands to lumber up to cast a stone at the main gate. Then there were the ramparts: brick, stone and wooden stakes stacked up as high as five men, all hauled up from the plains below on the backs of villagers and the Asanos' loyal subjects. And beyond that, the inner stronghold, surrounding a majestic keep where generations of Asano nobles and lords had retained their family heritage. A diverted spring provided water directly into the keep, which dominated the township of just over two thousand smaller dwellings, all grateful and indebted subjects to the merciful Asanos.

But most of all, Minami stood at the fringe of the Emperor's influence, watching over an intersection of trade routes. One led south to the divine Fuji and the rapidly expanding town of Yedo. The other led northeast, to the rugged mountains and lawless country of the Kaga, where gods, spirits and demons were said to dwell alongside animals and the fabled Emishi tribes. These were lands where there was no clear, absolute justice, save those at the hands of an Asano follower.

So when Kira returned to his family's hometown, followed by Sesuke just ten days later, Minami and the surrounding plains were flooded with over three thousand samurai loyal to the Asano family. Most lodged in Minami, but the combined armies of Kira and Sesuke overflowed, and soon a sort of military rule had been established in the nearby countryside. Farmers, at the cost of their lives, were ordered to supply food, rice, lodging and their daughters.

While within Minami, Kira and Sesuke were plotting their next move. The weapons Jigo used were effective, they thought and debated, it would do well for us to employ them to fight the Emperor. We will buy ten thousand units from the Chinese and Portuguese through our contacts, they mused. But in the meantime, where was the caravan?

* * *

Seventeen days after Lord Kira returned to his hometown, a group of men were spotted at the edge of the forests, making their way to Minami. The local officer, whose job was to report incursions of imperial samurai, was anxious at first, but when he saw ragged, broken caravans bloated with women and wounded, he immediately sent word to his commanders at Minami. 

For the first time in days it had stopped snowing, although the ground and the air was still freezing. As Jigo led his rag-tag army of samurai and wounded soldiers through the empty fields, he was accompanied by Daizen, still riding with a semblance of pride on his horse. But the villagers and farmers rushed out to see the sight of the third and final column of survivors of war.

It was certainly no joke to see an abbot riding at the head of a column before a samurai commander, but the third column was unusually distinct from the rest: seven lumbering samurai were clustered around what appeared to be a noble lady and her hand servant. The hand servant was without argument a leper, but he looked in fine fighting condition, and against all the customs the rulers of this land had brought upon them, he bore a fire cannon shoulder-slung. The noble lady was badly cut on her arms and face, but unlike the fawning consorts of the Asanos, she carried herself like a samurai, broad-shouldered and straight-backed.

One of the samurai with her bore an ancestral name flag, only reserved for distinguished samurai, with the characters 'Eboshi'.

And at once, in their custom to support officers returning from a just and noble war, the villagers offered their victuals.

"Lady Eboshi," and Aiyo recoiled slightly at being given a title, "Have this melon to nourish you on your way, for you must have had a long journey."

They kept their distance from her leper friend, but Aiyo took the melon from the villager and offered it to him, and he took it gladly. Seventeen days of travel in the wilderness had made her tired, worn-out, wishing for the soft linen of a bed that was not made of rock. She could hardly feel the sores at the bottom of her feet, and her breath was raspy from the cold air. The left sleeve of her robes was soiled and ragged, bearing the marks of slain samurai blood; one of the samurai walked immediately at her left side to protect her from possible indecency. The wound on her forehead still stung.

But she was a changed person. The blade she took from the imperial samurai she clutched tightly in her right hand as she walked – a gesture deemed too manly and hostile by many of the villagers. She regarded their stares as natural; she was in no mood to speak to anyone except Sesuke now.

Keeping her mind on the long winding path ahead, the first sight of the Minami fort did take her breath away, but then she realised it was such a fitting picture of the Asano's control and domination. And she visually tried to see the effort it would take to get up there.

Accompanied by her unusual train, she surmounted the challenge of the hill. More villagers, abandoning their work, drawn by the traditional curiosity of a woman leading men, gathered as they precariously trudged up towards the gates. Blankly enduring another gauntlet, the guards at the gate of Minami threw open the barricaded doors to welcome them. But she swore she had to be dreaming – how could she have scaled that blasted hill so fast, with so many people watching, with Sesuke and that handsome leech Kira now almost within the reach of her blade…

Even before she could drive the dizziness of the long journey from her head, the drama began afresh.

"My lord and protector!"

Daizen commenced with the predictable bootlicking: off his horse, he was on his knees, his blade aside in a sign of respectful obedience, and as he did obeisance to Sesuke, he made sure every one of his seven bows was complete. His men, viewing his example did the same.

Watching the events, she steadied herself against one of her men. She was tired, but hoping to be as every bit as defiant to Sesuke as possible. She heard a familiar sigh; the abbot slipped beside her, his gaze serious.

"If you wish to be rebellious, do remember that you're still a retainer. Or to be more precise, a dead retainer's ronin sister," Jigo told her softly. "Sesuke may have liked your brother, but there's no guarantee he'll show you similar favour, and that's if he deems you legitimate enough."

She recalled their conversation on the slopes, just days before reaching Minami. "I'll keep in mind your advice, Jigo," she replied, dropping the customary address, "but if I need your help, I know who to look for. You don't need to worry about me."

It was Jigo's turn to be received by Sesuke, as the men and samurai exchanged warm and exuberant greetings at being reunited. He turned to mouth to her: "Choose your allies, pick your fights well."

Her eyes were still playing hide-and-seek with the scenery; she brushed it off as having too little to eat, and too little rest over their exodus. Her leper friend eyed her as she wobbled, but she steadied herself on his shoulder.

When Sesuke reached her, flanked by Kira, Daizen and dozen other of his trusted retainers, she broke into a humble bow. "My Lord Sesuke," she greeted him. "Lord Asano of Minami."

As it was customary, Kira ordered her to rise, and they had a good look at her and her followers. And as it was again customary, Sesuke was to inquire about the state of their journey.

She could predict the first line to come out of his mouth.

"Hiojo has fallen?" he asked her directly.

A brief interlude of speech, but she picked up where the silence left them: "Yes, my Lord. He died from his injuries after being wounded. We buried him in a wood many days from here. May his soul rest in peace."

"And you are the last one left of the house of Eboshi?" he asked again.

She drew a deep breath. "Yes, my Lord. And I pledge my allegiance, my life and my sword to you as long as I have breath to serve the house of a thousand samurai."

She still had enough courage to stare at Sesuke in the eye; Kira's face was swirling in the near foreground. She could sense that her pledge was rolling and fighting its way through to Sesuke's reason.

Given his absolute power, he could have done anything he wanted, short of quartering her and those who had come to admire her resilience, and end the story right in front of the gates of Minami. But instead, he made a decision which would unleash the fury of the young woman standing before him.

"Very well," he answered. "From now on, she shall serve this house as her family had done, as a lady in service, and perhaps more."

The hint was not lost on Aiyo, who with her title and her men, was going to follow the path she told Jigo about.

"Surely you don't need a leper in your service," one of the samurai with Kira asked her, as Sesuke and his train left for the fort.

"His name is Osa," she retorted, "and he will be in my service as long as he is alive."

The samurai grunted, unhappy but not willing to argue.

"Besides I think he can fight much better than you."

* * *

It was one thing to be a lady-in-waiting of a great family by name, another to be escorted to her quarters by maidservants. She had become the female equivalent of her brother, or perhaps slightly higher. She took a breath, relishing the vague pleasure, but still caught by the unsettling sensation of kneeling by her dead brother's grave, not mourning, not delirious. Just – unsettled.

She clutched her brother's short blade, which he had been so proud to bear twenty years earlier when the Asanos had set their feet into their house. Bound together with the blade she had snatched from the dead samurai, she stared out beyond the boundaries of the Minami fort. The fog drenched mountains in the east were both singing a requiem and calling out to her.

* * *

She needed to get accustomed this new responsibility. _Rank in this dynasty comes with duty_, Osa had joked with her. It brought to mind he was probably a samurai too before he became crippled with the deadly disease.

She could do whatever she wanted as Hiojo's sister in Nara, but here at the edge of the empire, it was her job as a lady in service to be present at the gatherings of Asano and his lesser samurai. She knew her constant goings-in were monitored by the retainers and select few who kept charge of Asano's household affairs. Even at these meetings, while she knew Sesuke would not bother with her, she felt he was unintentionally throwing her an opportunity by allowing her to be present.

She was looking for an opening – a hole of weakness – anything which would let her play her card or give her the opportunity to even the score. Even if she needed to follow Asano to the ends of the earth, she would rather die seeking vengeance.

As in the previous meetings of Sesuke and his generals, there was the common warmongering, the fruitless discussions of how to subjugate more villagers to the east and the rumours of rumours of the Emperor's motives. _Idiots pointing fingers while we sit and watch_, Hiojo used to tell her. _Asano's real loyal servants were the retainers and families bonded by blood and history_. True. She fronted the mass of yukata-clad men and women no one would suspect as loyal retainers of the great Lord of Thousand Samurai.

She mentally sat contemplating each swig of information; she knew her position, while just recently secure, was a promise, but she was waiting for a chance which might leak out from this pointless babbling that she could exploit for her greater good.

"The Emperor's samurai were spotted at the edge of Soriba again…"  
"I recommend that we move out to the village beyond the Minami slopes. By occupying that point, we could prevent further rebellion…"

"Samurai must not abandon their traditions just for this new trend or strategy…"  
Sesuke only paid attention to anything that was remotely linked to the Emperor because, as she noticed, the man was securely afraid of the Emperor's trickery. Listening to reports after reports of movements and skirmishes of the two armies, he continued to brood over his harem of commanders, his eyes flickering as much as the tapers burning themselves to the ground, and the consistent fluttering of servants coming in to replace them.

"Sesuke, I'm in favour of spreading our forces out. We cannot concentrate all our men in Minami, especially when just one attack will wipe us all out," went Kira. He was the only one who dared call Sesuke by name. "If we move to east, we stay hidden from the Emperor's spies and scouts for at least a few more years."

"My lord, with all due respect," one of the commanders said, "we have nowhere in the east to retreat to. There is nothing but lawless country and other warlords fighting for whatever land they can hold on to."

"My lord," went another general, "there are numerous mines of iron in the east we can use for building our fire cannons. It is well worth the risk."

"You don't know anything of the east country!" another snapped. "We will be torn to shreds!"

"Then you would wait here for death then?"

"At least I didn't flee like a dog when I was supposed to fight!"

As the meeting began to descend into another bout of arguments, the group of retainers patiently waited for either Sesuke or Kira to flex their power. It was her job not to worry about politics, but servitude and obeisance. Yet the two lords of Nara and Minami watched the bickering commanders trade insults and curses with an air of semi-conscious indifference. Whether or not they seemed to be contemplating the voices she let her mind wander. She had remembered something the Abbot Jigo said about the east land:

_An empty barren chain of mountains and lakes and forests, where gods, demons and spirits lived with disturbed men who dared to set foot within their sacred territory. _

Even when the Abbot had muttered these words, she dismissed them as superstitions unfit for a man of religion (but Jigo was hardly a man of religion anyhow). The forbidden great wilderness to the east was just a fog's breath outside the paper screened window of her quarters. It was there;and she knew it had a mysterious voice, a mountain step to allow her to achieve her aspirations, a summit fit only for vengeance.

Then unexpectedly, Sesuke echoed her very thoughts:

"Don't think I'm afraid of old wives' tales," he said, his tone was commanding and firm this time. "I don't fear spirits and gods or whatever ghosts invented by mothers to scare their children."

_Well said_, she thought. _But can you live up to your words?_

"My lord, think of the men, think of their morale and their families and their weariness," one general stood up to say. "They will not survive another expedition after the flight from Nara…"  
It was Sesuke's turn to get to his feet. "If my men of war are not willing, then you can stay here and baby-sit Minami. My loyal servants and myself will carve a kingdom out from the mountains."

His gaze flickered over to her, lingered for a second, before he overlooked her response to seek his other supporters among his retainers. His gaze was no longer the thoughtful, sedated one he wore through the entire gathering; there was a fierce twist to the great Lord's pensive stare, more ruthless and hungry than ever. The same look, she realised, when he drove his blade through his ignorant elder brother.

"Long live the Lord of a thousand samurai!" someone yelled behind her.

"Long live Lord Asano!"

She stood still, not shouting nor standing. But before she knew it, there was the clatter of drawn blades and all Sesuke held that look as he swept out of the room, his presence billowing behind him.

There was no need for any signal: _this was it_.

* * *

"What can you tell me about the deep east land?"

It seemed almost like a reflex action, but her right hand was always at her sheath, poised to draw Hiojo's short blade. Right now, as she sat among people who Osa guaranteed were friends and trustworthy, she was observing all their actions – both counting cost and pulling strings.

She had never thought allowing Osa to carry the Eboshi family blade would have so much significance. Perhaps years ago she had heard passing stories of a man, who had washed his followers' feet to show his love for them, as completely unthinkable. Now she was finding this ruse to allow Osa to hold her blade something like it. But the idea itself was suggested by Osa. "If they see me holding your sword for you, maybe they would see you differently. They would see you instead of your brother," he proposed.

There was some truth about it: Hiojo never let the blade out of his sight, much less allow any of his minions to lay a finger on it.

It was about time she gathered the followers and the retainers of the Eboshi clan; after all, her family was a samurai family, similarly served by a hierarchy of lesser fighters, mercenaries and bondmen. She knew that Hiojo had a handful, but now that she met them all, she counted almost twenty, several of whom she had become acquainted with on the trek from Nara. So now, with them all watching and jolted by the change of leadership in the family, it was time for her little charade.

The first thing her men saw when they came into view was her serenity: seated, cross-legged on the floor, behind the stooping table, a blade and a fire cannon placed cleanly across it. Her face was restored to the blank stare it on once gave, long time ago, on the dirty streets of Kyoto. Whatever regalia she wore as a lady of her lord's house was reflected in her robes. And Osa, his face heavily bandaged, stood beside her, clutching the Eboshi sword – he looked like a man with a walking stick instead of a loyal follower.

"Your loyal servants pay you obeisance, my lady," one samurai greeted her. She recognized him as a scarred, battle-worn retainer who had fled from Nara with her. After finishing his customary bow however, she caught him flinging a sideways glance at Osa, before returning to the men standing before her.

They were just over a dozen. But according to Osa, many were trustworthy and worth the trouble. To her, they were more like thugs.

"Lord Asano is gathering men for a conquest. As a loyal lady in his household, I am bound to follow," she spoke to them. "But the journey is going to be more dangerous than our exodus here. Many of you already know, he wants to go east and built his domain among those in the far east. So, what can you tell me of the deep east land?"

Her followers looked at each other, as if they had been asked a trick question. A man whose face was bound with cloth just like Osa, stood up, and replied, "My lady, there are towns and villages just beyond these mountains where people like far from any kind of rule. But further east there is nothing but forest and mountains…"

"Has anyone been there before? I don't wish to here the same rumours everyone tells Lord Asano," she cut him off.

There was another man, a scrawny figure, whose head was always lowered. The only sign that he was addressing her was the sudden straightening of his back, and he spoke carefully: "My lady, excuse our ignorance. Few of bus have the courage to venture far from these villages and towns. But for those who do, we don't speak much of it."

"Then you know something? Tell me then. Rest assured. I will believe you no matter how crazy it might sound."

"Far west, there is a great forest which is so thick that there is no place for a man to put his feet. It is so vast that it fills the whole of Japan with trees from these mountains till the sea of Hokkaido. Within this forest, the Emishi dwell, protected by mountains of iron and black rock.

"But in the centre of this forest is a realm long forgotten by man. It is the domain of all gods and spirits of nature. And the animals and creatures there are monsters who have reigned there since the beginning of the world. They are invincible. No man can slay them, and they kill whoever steps in their territory."

She was still skeptical. "Have you seen them? Have you fought any of these monsters?"

"No, my Lady."

"Then in that case, it's very simple," she said confidently. "Who will follow me to see if this man here is telling the truth?"

Again they all took a moment to register her words. It seemed as if she had thrown a huge taunt to them and their courage. In the immediate wake of her request, all her retainers, save the man who she had questioned, remained in their positions of obeisance. Or, at least, in her perspective, a state of reduced shame.

Then, Osa stepped forward, drew the blade he was so prominently holding and declared: "This blade and its owner fears no death or god. Only dishonour."

And sure enough, with the clack of strained joints, the tingle of blades against their sheaths and the shuffling of feet, men stood up slowly, like a cloud of dust amassing before her. It was not too long before everyone was on their feet, a willful obedience in their eyes accompanied by a jealous envy that a cursed man was also taunting them.

She smiled softly. _This little stunt worked pretty well_. The fire-cannon and the flint in her other hand felt warm. _But nothing gives a greater curse than this instrument, _she thought, not knowing how true her intentions would become.

* * *

****

Notes: _It's been 7 months since I last updated. Apparently the inspiration I get is very short-lived, because this supposedly simple chapter was extremely hard to churn out. Its purpose is to show how Eboshi moves up the ranks, and starts to command some influence. She is not at her peak yet (that I will illustrate in another chapter), but this is the prelude to – if I can put my thoughts into words – the great conflict between her and Princess Mononoke._

_Between December 2006 and July 2007, a lot of stuff has happened which has partly thrown my writing off track a bit. I've ORD-ed from the Police; I'm no longer an officer, having served my 2 years of national service as of Feb 12 (2 months earlier for being operationally fit). A lot of the first portion of the story, which sounds much better, was written in March, while I was working as temp admin at a pharmaceutical company. However, I've switched jobs: I'm now part of the service crew at a Japanese Yakitori Restaurant called Sumi Yakitori (B2 Centrepoint, Orchard Road, for those Singaporeans). If you've worked in a restaurant before, you'll know it takes up all of your time. So I've been struggling through this chapter, finding time between my long-distance trainings, helping out at church and many other commitments._

_On Aug 6, I start university at the national university of Singapore (NUS). I'm studying Arts & Social Sciences, not sure what I'm going to major in yet._

_Thanks for those who've taken the trouble to review (including the flamer). _


	13. The Rise

**13. The Rise**

On a clear day, from any of the taller hills in the wide wilderness known as the Kaga, it was said that the rooftop of the gods could be seen in the far south. Just sixteen days into their expedition, Aiyo Eboshi found out that hearsay was true. Traversing a difficult rise on a particularly sunny day, something caught her eye further south: a majestic snow-capped head of rock forced up through the clouds.

It was the mountain of the gods, the Mountain of Fujiyama.

It was different from those pictures and paintings, she thought. Those artists made it look romantic, visually unreachable; in the large wall paintings in Minami where the mountain was the backdrop for heroic battles set to even more stunning calligraphy, she the great mountain to be merely part of scenery. But here, viewing it with her own eyes for the first time, it was neither romantic or just scenery.

It was rugged; it was wild and – sharp. As sharp as the worn hilt of the Eboshi family's katana. And she could now almost imagine that same hilt, with the face and force of the great Mount Fuji, crashing down on her enemy's face, knocking him off his horse and turning his sallow, ignorant cheeks inside out. Fringed deep with clouds, she traced the sides as if she herself was going to make an ascent up the mountain to the abode of the gods. Would she herself dare, with her ignoble and pathetic blade and the flint of iron pellets challenge and slay the gods who kept staring down at her from the heavens?

Her horse neighed, impatient at her quiet awe at the great mountain. Reluctantly, she followed the column of banner-burdened samurai and retainers down the rise and into the forest again. But she refused to let the mountain out of her sight. Flanked by other lesser columns of rock, she kept her eyes on the lofty peak even as it passed beyond the nearby hills and faded into the lush green of pine leaves and their branches. The mount of the gods was there, a luminous wash of white against a paler, sickly sky. It was difficult to remove the image from her mind. Especially since, all the while, the thought flowing in her mind brooded as crooked and sharp as the katana she carried:

_To strike a blow, with the force of the mountain. And to finish off my enemy. And to crush his face beneath my hands_.

The next time she opened her eyes, there was no mountain. Instead it was pouring, raining like she had never seen before. Osa stood beside her, a bamboo umbrella keeping both of them dry, or at least just keeping her face from the rain. She was kneeling, her robes soaked in the mud-mixed grass at the peak of another rise.

"My lady?" spoke Osa.

The forest was suffocating: crowded yet empty at the same time; the rain, the mud and the sub-darkness of this rainy day made it worse. She was not sure exactly what was going on – the smoke, the battle cries, the stench of iron dust and flint – wait, yes, now she knew – she stopped thinking of the mountain, and remembered she was carrying a fire-cannon, just like Osa was, and they were clashing with someone.

"My lady, Daizen is giving orders," Osa repeated.

It was much clearer now. The same local villagers who had told her how to see the mountain on a clear day had defied Lord Asano. They had called him a rogue, a traitor of the Emperor and a son of a _tayu_ (and more vulgar words than that). They had fired arrows at the men bearing the Asano banner, refused to supply food and barricaded their village. And so Lord Asano was going to going to destroy them. And who did he choose to lead the attack?

From her vantage point, she could see Daizen at the head of a column of samurai. He was the only one mounted, the only one she had in her sights. The flint burning in her left hand and the right clutching her rain-drenched fire-cannon, she swept her eyes to Lord Asano, perched on a horse, far to her right. Retainers were crowding around him to be the one honourable enough to keep him dry with their umbrellas. It was he who ordered her small band of riflemen to provide what he called "support fire".

Depressed by the rain, the sightless sky and the tense apprehension of battle racing through every inch of this supposedly sacred forest, she stared down the shaft of her cannon. All her men, just over a dozen of them who had mastered the art and talent of handling such ammunition, were poised on the same ridge as her, eager for her signal to release a wave of fiery, metallic death. But she was not going to kill innocent villagers, at least not in person; she tilted her cannon forward, and then let it rise, her lighted flint stubbornly warm in between her fingers.

Daizen was giving signals again: he summoned the samurai line forward, towards the pathetic wooden wall of the village fringed by trees and undergrowth. It would be over in a moment, she knew, for what could farmers resist armoured samurai with? Archers from the samurai line were releasing volley after volley into the village's interior but, blocked by trees, she could not see how effective they were. Smoke, from earlier rounds of volleys lit with fire, billowed from the trees like an ominous storm cloud. There were already plenty in the sky.

Smoke and the all pervading fog caused by the rain were starting to overwhelm everything; there appeared no sense crouching so uncomfortably in sludge and rain watching Daizen's blunders. What idiot would assemble samurai in straight lines in a forest, in such conditions? And what stupid commander who station his cavalry on the crest of a muddy, slippery hill to prepare to flush the villagers out if his first attack failed? Even Lord Asano, and the reactive Kira, was slightly smarter, choosing to watch from a distance, instead of committing their men to what she thought would be near disaster.

"My lady," Osa roused her. "Look."

Daizen's samurai had stormed the village, smashing through a hole in the puny wooden fence, but were met by a returning volley of arrows. A pile of writhing, muddy armoured samurai was now almost blocking the path to that opening, where Daizen was directing his men towards; by the way he was looking up at the crest of hill, she saw that he seemed desperate.

"Osa, get the riflemen ready," she ordered, getting to her feet, even as stray arrows were whistling dangerously by. "I will give the orders."

Osa waved his signal along the line, who all rose to attention. He flashed the same signal to Lord Asano's commanders, and finally down to Daizen's men. All understood. Except Daizen, who as she predicted, redoubled his efforts to storm the village.

"Riflemen, aim beyond the village walls! Fire at the houses if you can see them!" she commanded. _This infernal rain_. In the rain, the forest seemed to be alive with weather, sounds and movement; every aspect and dimension was changing with the fog and the rain. She could hardly see her target, but then again, he was making himself laughably obvious.

She rested the weight of the fire-cannon on her shoulder. _If only these things weren't so annoyingly heavy_. But instead of keeping low, she rose and set her right knee on the edge of the rise, where she had supreme command over the entire graben below. She was in the rain, only kept from being drenched by her hat, but rain was no consequence, when she was now so intimately seeking out her target. _Show yourself and move into position, you worm. _She lit the flint; she now had to give the order, but she knew she had to delay her shot a little while more, if it was to look accidental.

A muted shout. And Daizen too had charged into the village under the protection of a dozen of his samurai. She had to let loose the cannon fire now or risk messing up the whole plan.

"Steady! FIRE!" she cried. Her soft voice turned shrill in the rain.

The rise shook with a hundred iron pellets igniting and blasting through their shafts. As Osa fired

his shot, it rose like an arc and crashed straight into one of the village houses still visible amongst the trees. Upon impact, it splattered into flames and thick grey smoke, slashing fire and iron powder onto the wooden frame. Another hit by another gunner, and the roof had collapsed in a swirl of flames.

Another kind of fog was sweeping the village; not the pale veil of rainy mist, but a cloud of intoxicating smoke from the iron pellets and their fires. As the riflemen began to reload for a second volley, the samurai forced the barricaded village gate open, and met with little resistance save for burned men and charred villagers. One round at been enough to subdue the village. _And one more to finish it off._

Automatically, without her orders, the riflemen reloaded. All she needed now was to say the signal, _but where was her target? _A flash of action down below, as another building succumbed to the flames and – yes – from her vantage point, she saw Daizen and his samurai flee out from the opening in the village wall.

"Reload and fire!" she yelled.

But she let loose first. And with the cannon firm on her shoulder, supported by her bent knee on the rise, she opened fire.

The recoil shook her, but she was getting used to it. The iron pellet was lost in the air for a moment, before exploding right in front of Daizen and his samurai. All she caught was the blast, a split-second of Daizen's horrified stance to protect himself, before another volley by the riflemen splattered the entire village beneath her into a molten mix of fire and smoke.

"Did you get him?" Osa asked her, coughing through the bandage around his mouth.

"It's too early to tell," she spoke softly, "but it would've looked like an accident."

Calmly, she brought her fire-cannon at ease; the rainwater had traced her bang of hair across her face, and Osa caught the muscular flex of her right arm as she held her weapon aloft. Coupled with the blade at her waist, the rain whipping the forest in a frenzy all around her and the pale, uncertain resolution beaming from her eyes, Osa realized that his leader was not just a woman with a score to settle, but a powerful wild force, sent by the gods, both bewitching and beastly.

"Osa. What are you staring at?" she asked him gently.

He quickly averted his eyes; a hard stare like his did nothing to suggest any intentions of gentlemanly dignity, especially when the focus of his attention was a lady.

"Nothing, my lady."

With the barrage of rain still coming, the smoke caused by the burning houses did not clear immediately, and it was not known the outcome of two full volleys of cannon fire on the rebels or the samurai. But her attention was caught by yelling samurai from below; Lord Asano was moving his men down as well, but unlike Daizen, he had stationed all his archers on the hills. His samurai, being three times as numerous as his incompetent commander's, would crowd the village.

"Look there!" one of the riflemen shouted, pointing at the village.

Peeking through the swirling fog, one of Daizen's samurai had raised the Asano banner over the village walls. Lord Asano's samurai were not needed at all; instead of his entire army heading down to combat the hill, Lord Asano gave the order to seize all the necessary food they needed, and to move out. She saw him take an impatient gaze at the sky; he too was getting restless with all this rain.

* * *

"My Lord, Daizen-sama is dead." 

She had been expecting a field report for quite a while now, but the dramatic effect the ensign's report had on the small company of Lord Asano's trusted circle was obvious. Here, crowded into a semi-huddle under the umbrellas of their various retainers waiting for the Great Lord's instructions, she caught every bitter grimace on these men's faces.

"Curses and _tengu_!" swore one of the commanders. "Daizen, dead at a time like this!"

"Well, he wasn't really the most effective commander of his men," added someone else with a veiled touch of sarcasm.

"It doesn't matter now. A villager's arrow is as deadly to an animals as it is to a samurai, let us learn that," Kira announced. He turned to the messenger. "Make sure he is properly buried and given all the samurai honours of burial."

Lord Asano, who had hardly twitched at the mention of one of his most loyal retainers perishing in the battle, remained distant, untouched by the conversation. He stared beyond the group of warlike men, past the dense fog and smoke percolating the trees. _Just like me, _she thought. He was trying to trace the vague outlines of the hills and the great mountains through the smoke. _What is on his mind?_

"My Lord, Sesuke-sama," only Kira had the supreme privilege of addressing Lord Asano by his first name, being his cousin, "there is the question of Daizen's men. There are close to two hundred of them who now lack a leader."

Lord Asano nodded, eyed his commanders, and his gaze fell on her, the only lady present. _Don't look him in the eye._ She pretended to glance strongly at something at the great Lord's feet, avoiding his gaze – not out of respect, but she did not want to appear to defiant to arouse his suspicions. _After all, everything's going according to plan – so far. _

"We will need more riflemen," he said, and made known his orders: "A hundred of them will take orders from Lady Eboshi. The remainder will join your forces, Kira."

The slightest of smiles appeared on her lips, but only the muddy ground could've noticed it.

She knew the commanders did not approve; her influence among the Great Lord's men was already on the rise – either as lady who wielded the ultimate weapon or as one with a savage beauty or as a former girl of the guest houses, they did not know. But with Lord Asano giving the orders, who would dare to protest?

"Done then. Gather your forces. We head northeast in an hour," Kira commanded. Everyone complied.

She strode aside, but waiting till all the commanders cleared before she signaled to her retainer that she was ready to return. But before she left, she made a gesture to the ensign still waiting in the rain. Stepping out from the protection of her retainer's umbrella she looked him square in the eye, her hands rummaging her own robes, producing a single folded piece of paper.

"Osa told me about you," she said, "so this is a _note_ of thanks for omitting the information about Daizen's body. My men will assist in the burial. That way no one but the two of us will know he wasn't killed by a stupid arrow."

* * *

_Lady Eboshi_. She rolled the term off and around her tongue, like a swab of bitter sashimi. Both luxuries she was unused to possessing. Even Osa had begun to address her with the 'lady' prefix. The last time she heard anyone call her _Aiyo_, by her proper first name, her brother was still alive. 

She lifted her hunter's hat. The wet mess of stray hair concealed her forehead. Deftly, knowing she did not have the privilege of so much time as a leader in charge of so many men, she pulled her hair back into a makeshift ponytail; her experiences fighting samurai taught her that short hair was useful. But as she set her hair in place, she peered at herself through the single mirror in the entire camp.

Whether it was the cracked glass that reflected her deep frown, or she was radiating an actual broodiness from her face, she did not like what she saw. _Funny how I don't recognise myself anymore._ The young, eager girl of nineteen was now of an undetermined age and resolve, whose questionable age was concealed by the armour, dress and demeanour of a warrior. _Am I already twenty-one? _She asked herself, _because even I cannot tell. _She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, noticing groove in her muscular shoulder, where her fire-cannon had provided an unlikely practice in bearing loads.

A call for her came from outside. Sighing, she slipped on her hat, and hoisted her fire-cannon above her shoulder; the weight was familiar. A final glance in that mirror. What was bothering her now was that – concealed by a man's hat and bearing a weapon of destruction – the reflection in the mirror seemed to be ten times more comforting. _More comforting, at least, than the vision of the girl looking so lost with her messy hair._

"My lady," one of the sentries greeted her.

Osa stood beside him. As with all other times, his invisible expressions under his mask of bandages were just barely flickering in his eyes. Humble and devoted to her as he was, she sometimes felt unworthy of his doting on her; she felt wrong to keep him in her thrall just because she had done one single, unthinking act of compassion. She managed a weak smile to him, but the fierceness of his eyes told her that today was all business.

"What is it now?" she asked.

"One of Daizen's former lieutenants is here to see you," he briefed her. "He wants you to ensure you'll take good care of him and his men."

_Samurai ego, _she swore, _was the most troublesome kind of formality. _She knew it was the sole reason why none of the commanders accepted her as their equal.

Osa moved aside – no, he was nearly forced aside by a massive bulk of a man. She saw his samurai garb, the trademark katana sheathed at his waist. The muscles on his arms could be seen through the slits in his armour; even from his short stride to her, she could tell a lot of muscles were involved. Standing before her, he towered over her and Osa, his expression as flat as his features. He might have tried to use his size to intimidate her, but she wished that his head – and by natural extension his thought and actions – would be proportionally equal to his size.

Neither Osa or her was too well-versed in samurai etiquette, but she could roughly know that this man was acting defiant by not submitting to a bow. _So you're a traditionalist, I see. _She was not going to give him the satisfaction of his defiance.

The man hid his disappointment at not being able to display his bold insubordination.

"You are Daizen's lieutenant? You do know you and your men will be serving under me," she informed him, although he probably already knew.

"I know, Eboshi-sama," he said, more a drone than acknowledgement.

"Then you'll also know that you will be fighting alongside me and carrying the Eboshi banner from now on," she said, and then she added as an afterthought: "I won't treat you or your men as _ronin_. I will accord you all the rights of a samurai serving under me, including training you how to use the fire-cannons."

He raised an eyebrow, but beyond that, he seemed incapable of any more reasonable emotion.

"We don't want to learn to use those things," he muttered in a single breath.

_A traditionalist indeed. Looks like I will have to either accommodate or convince him. _She stared at him hard and the lieutenant, in what he knew was blatant rebellion, did not lower his eyes. _If not then, there's the sword. _

_But let that be the last resort._

"What do you mean?" Osa interrupted them.

"My men and I do not think highly of a lady who fights like a man, battles using fire and smoke instead of the honourable way of the sword and who keeps in her company filthy, cursed men."

He let it all out. Osa cocked his head to one side. The sentries raised her weapons. But she, drawing her familiarity with being insulted from her not so distant past, maintained her stare, unflinching, embellishing it with a slight twitch of a smile.

"And I don't care how you treat us. We are men of the Way," he ended with a flourish.

Osa and the sentries did not react. They knew her too well; they eyed her waiting for her to make her move.

"But I do care," she replied, audible enough to let all those watching the standoff hear. "What's your name, lieutenant? And which flank of attack did Daizen –sama assign you with taking charge of?"

The question appeared to have completely taken the man by surprise. But he tried to hide it, as much as she held her ground. She knew her philosophy was steady and a final, intangible weapon – _match hostility with goodwill, for it heals and cuts the deepest wounds._

"Gonza. I am Gonza, the lieutenant," he mumbled in reply. "I took charge of the men on the –"

"No matter, Gonza-san," she waved her hand at his impending statement. "We will get a chance to prove our loyalties towards each other when Lord Asano calls us to battle our next foe."

Osa looked to her. Gonza appeared confused.

"And to prove that my intentions are good and have no reason to deprive such veterans like you of their swords, you and your men will lead my next charge," she stated clearly. She knew she had won when she saw Gonza's face drop and her sentries stare at her in blank disbelief. But Osa gave her a small nod. It helped her to continue. "You will be the first to engage the enemy head on, and you will flight as you have always fought. But I would like you to watch my signals because you have to be careful of my cannons."

"My lady, I –"

"Take the men you think deserve this honour and form two flanks in front of my fire-cannons if we run into hostile forces. Understood?"

"But, my Lady –"

She needed to end it now, for the effect; it would make her gracious, understanding and efficiently in control of the rogues. "Our conversation here is finished. Is there any other thing you want, Gonza-san?"

She was certain Osa was smirking from ear to ear. But the enormous hulk of a man before her continued to stare at her as if she was a new species of animal.

"You forget yourself, Gonza-san." She put enough command in her tone to startle him.

"Yes, my Lady. We will face anyone who dares to challenge the Great Lord Asano." He clenched his sword and with a movement of armour, he turned and walked away.

She took a great sigh. The sentries took it as their signal to resume their duties, and Osa came with an obvious scowl on his visible features.

"You notice he said he will kill people, but he didn't say he was grateful or gracious to you," he pointed out. "But, still, it was a good idea. You have a way with words."

She was quick to deflect the praise: "I think I just put ourselves at a huge risk."

_No true samurai could resist being in the front line to prove his courage and loyalty. They view it as the ultimate opportunity to prove themselves against other skilled men. According to several traditions, they recite their ancestors' names as they charge into battle because they are proud to be the first to fight the enemy, _her brother had once said to her. _It's a predictable fault of these blunt men. _And she had used it to completely deceive and defuse a potential problem.

"No matter, my Lady," the bandaged man reassured her. "It's no problem my riflemen can't handle."

She turned from him to follow the movements of her sentries. Behind them and her cloth tent, the evening sky was growing unrealistically dark. It looked like more rain was coming.

* * *

Again, as with every sizeable settlement they encountered, a short consensus needed to be held if they were to take the town by force. 

"My scouts have established that a sizeable town exists over the next pass," one of the commanders briefed them. "It is spread out over the foot of several mountains, and cornered by a large lake. The people living there are loosely grouped by their industry – wood-cutting, ore mining… several farms could also be seen."

She continued to observe Lord Asano's reaction to this news.

"They have no defences. If we came down from the pass, we could sweep the entire town away within a couple of hours. Beyond ploughshares, I doubt they will possess any other weapons," She scowled; the tone the man used was clearly derogatory. She did not like the idea of firing iron pellets on innocent, unassuming farmers.

The badly sketched map simply showed two large shades of mountain and lake, and in between them, the scouts had marked out the location of a town – no, it appeared to be nothing more than a cluster of villagers around a central building. To her, even if she could set out all her men on those mountains, she thought it a waste to spend so much effort on so little.

"My Lord, your orders?" the commander addressed Lord Asano directly for instructions.

In his sweeping black robe with the obvious scabbard of his katana trailing behind him, he stepped up to map, took one look and traced his finger to a point on the map.

"Rushou, what is this?" he asked, finger on the focal point of the settlement.

The commander Rushou looked to his scouts, standing at the far edge of the gathering.

"The scouts say it is a pagoda, a sort of shrine that the townsfolk have built their houses around, My Lord."

_He's hesitating. I won't hesitate if I had that many men and the power to destroy just some villagers. Why? _She saw him linger on the sketch of the settlement's geography a little while longer. Before he turned and locked his gaze with Kira's. It was only a second, but she knew some kind of communication took place between the leader and his second – a subtle understanding, an almost invisible word.

But she was not fooled: _I saw that._

Her heart was beating fast. _And now, if I guess correctly, I know exactly what Sesuke is going to say – _

"We will not engage. I want all your troops to remain on the slopes here and here," he pointed to the map. "Kira-san and myself will see this place personally with a guard of a hundred men."

It was just as she predicted. The objective of this entire expedition might have been lost in the smoke and blood of their last fight, but right now it was clear again.

"No one from this town will be harmed. I want to see if this is where we can build a fort."

_Well said. _She grinned. Now she needed to observe what was so special about this village in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

******NOTES**: _Sorry it took such a long time to upload this chapter – and even more apologies for it being nothing more than a kind of bridging story between what will come next (Irontown) and what has happened earlier. I had written up to Daizen's death, then I got carried away with a _Naruto_ short story, before realizing what I had left undone. So I came back & finished the remainder. The story, more or less, has reached the setting where Mononoke-Hime took place, but I will embellish it a bit here & there – you'll see._

**_Still, writing short stories has taught me that the _Naruto_ genre is super flexible & a good place for practice. I've only just started watching the anime, but I will re-adapt a short story I was planning for Mononoke-Hime to the _Naruto_ universe. But this will be my focus – and I hope I have enough motivation to continue._**

**_School has begun. I'm reading some humanities modules at the Nat'l University of Singapore. Don't know what I want to do yet, still shopping around. Studying is good – it gives me free time to idly write. And now that I've got myself a laptop, I should really catch up on where I left off…_**


	14. Lord of the Mountain Shrine

**14. Lord of the Mountain Shrine**

In the mornings a thick, impenetrable mist hung over the steep ridges and crags where Lord Asano had set down his army the previous night before. The harsh, complicated geography of the area meant all his forces were scattered all over the slopes, and across the tiny stream which poured through rapids into the valley and again over the entrance to the entire basin. In the cold, dark hours just before dawn, the dying crimson glow of hundreds of soldiers' fires appeared as a mirage of brick red trees on the slopes.

At the very bottom of the basin, cut into the valley at an almost defenceless position, lay the cluster of houses which they called a village. The stream ran right through its centre, and the proximity of the lake it emptied into could account for rice crop and barley growing in sparse pockets all along the closest slopes to the village. Compared to Minami, it was a mere blip in the landscape; to compare this hamlet to Nara, on the other hand, was just plain insulting. As it rested in all its innocence and quietness in the valley, the villagers would wake that morning to find themselves surrounded by five thousand samurai of Lord Asano's army.

She perched herself on a boulder, precariously overlooking the valley. She could see the winding, lonely track which squirmed down from the mountain ridge to the village, but her view was obscured by the clouds which, passing at the peak of the rise, embraced her and clung to her as they threatened more rain.

Beyond these low-lying clouds, she could see, was a disturbing, awesome distance of deep forest for hundreds and thousands of miles north.

Again – that familiar feeling: something was calling out to her. Whenever she found herself alone and face-to-face with menacing nature, she could hear its pervasive, distant voice speaking to her. And now, at the edge of this wilderness, it was mumbling, whistling, with a definite consistency. But, unlike the previous times, the message was clear now; this was not just about some petty samurai revenge which was burning in her heart or some questionable debt of honour to her family name.

It had an almost demonic muttering, a perverse repetition of the same words in the hushed breath of quiet, growling syllables; it flew past her with the echo of whispers speaking from the wind, made more intimidating because she was staring at the forest.

_Cursed one._

_I see you._

_You bring your curse to these lands._

She did not want to admit it, but she knew clearly there was something waiting for them in the forest. Whether it was this exact thought or the blast of wind now flowing from that direction, she shivered slightly, her hands automatically reaching for a fire-cannon that was not by her side. So accustomed was she to having it with her all the time, its absence pained her.

_You challenge me._

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. That unsettling voice being carried on the wind broke into a thousand different sound, before she forced her eyes open. _Am I dreaming? _There was nothing more to be heard, save the clattering of leaves roused by the winds and the vague noise of flowing water. She did not look up at the forest. Instead she glanced down at the open mouth of the valley, back to the original reason why she was here.

Far below, along the road untouched by the red and black colours of his army, Lord Asano and his escort were making their way down to the village.

* * *

She sat at the same place overlooking the village at the same time the next morning. On all accounts, she should have felt better after an entire day of inactivity, where the entire army waited for orders from Lord Asano which never came. The man was unusually quiet after returning from his tour.

But she was far from rested. She was used to bad dreams; however, last night had to be a record: a repertoire of nightmares, winged creatures worst looking than _tengu_ and a blatantly grotesque chorus of the same voices she had heard yesterday. _I'm a practical human being. I don't get bothered by such things, _she told herself, although she knew, from their repetition, they were a serious inconvenience more than anything else. She was disturbed she could remember them so vividly.

And the one thing which she found hard to forget, was the image of what she believed was a blood soaked animal, its eyes replaced by flaming iron mounds, screaming and roaring, spouting a black, sinuous substance from its mouth. She could remember it charging at her; she could still feel the stench of something worse than death when it slammed into her vision and returned her back into the coolness of the night, breathless and panting.

Again, she avoided staring at the lush, green mass of forest tempting her from her vantage point, preferring instead to trace the road to the village.

_By the gods I hope I'm not losing my mind._ Footsteps broke her thoughts. Unconsciously her hand wrapped itself around her katana, as she turned to face the intruder. _Only Osa._

"My Lady, out for a morning stroll?" Osa greeted her. She sensed a hint of sarcasm in his voice. After all, the sentries he stationed to guard her would have told him all about her insomnia.

"How was the watch?" she replied, preferring not to answer.

She saw Osa's eyes perform trademark narrowing when he was troubled through the slits in his face bandage.

"My Lady, we lost several men last night just north of here."

Her gaze was immediately upon her deputy. Since she had taken over her brother's mantle as the Eboshi head, she was proud she had a zero casualty rate. She never lost men, especially not while they were sleeping soundly!

"Damn it. Whose gun misfired now?" she imagined it an accident rather than anything else.

"There was no misfire. They were gutted and dead when we found them this morning," Osa's tone turned unnaturally sympathetic. "There was a lot of blood. And the rest of the men say it was the work of spirits and demons on whose territory we have trespassed."

"Trust these samurai idiots to blame the unexplained for everything. How many men did you find?"

"Two. North of here, where most of Gonza-san's men took up their positions since yesterday. I've ordered some of the riflemen to keep watch over that area. But there shouldn't be any more disturbances. The men too afraid to go anywhere near the forest."

Musing on Osa's words, she mentally calculated the location where Gonza and his men would be. She found herself flanking north-east, straight into the thick forest flanking the valley.

Osa was almost expecting the question, and she knew she was getting accustomed to asking it. She looked him in the eye, and said: "Be truthful with me, Osa. What do you think?"

She knew he was both rational and not given into what she would term a 'samurai mentality' of mindless ritualism and inflexibility. But he took longer than usual to address her question.

"I heard some of the other commanders have lost men in questionable circumstances as well. So if I view all these happenings through these eyes, I'd say Imperial samurai have caught up to us, and are making us believe in myths when we are just careless."

She grinned. That was what she needed to hear from her closest friend.

"But you've always warned me to be truthful," he persisted, and the grin dropped from her face. "Because there is something very… how do I put it? – disconcerting about this place, that defies rational judgment, My lady. But I'm sure if we met the locals, they will enlighten us."

She frowned. Not exactly what she expected from the most forward-thinking among her men. _There must be something about this place to even make Osa consider the mystical over the rational,_she reasoned. She stared full at the forest blossoming out from the valley under a creeping, hung-over sun. _Have I come to the abode of gods and the resting place of demons?_

She was conscious that there needed to be some logical explanation for this. Eyes drifting like the wind she swept away the forest, and rested her thoughts instead on the village cuddled in the valley below. She glanced at the twisted breaths of smoke rising from the open fires and fixed her eyes on a tiny, crumbling black mass which was the central, focal point of the village, which Lord Asano had visited so quietly the day before.

"Osa, leave Gonza-san and his men here to run the show for a while," she ordered. "I would like to see the village in the valley myself."

The raised crest above his eyes indicated his surprise. "Following in your noble lord's footsteps?"

She shrugged off the stabbing joke. "No. I just want to know if anyone down _there_ has a better explanation for what's going on to us."

"Sounds reasonable." With a chuckle, he called to an ensign to relay his orders. If anyone asked, he strictly charged, he had Lady Eboshi were in a discussion. She watched him dismiss the messenger, swing the fire-cannon across his shoulder and hurry up to her.

"You know I heard the Chinese mercenaries the Emperor has bought over to fight us have got weapons like these too," Osa mentioned, his matter-of-fact tone telling her he was only half-serious. "They call them Ishibiya."

The thought entered her mind and exited it without much effect. "No matter, we'll deal with that when it comes. This is more pressing now."

* * *

They found a way down the mountain from the ridge, and as they descended below the level of clouds which fringed the valley, a slight drizzle graced their downward trek. There was no discernable pathway, but following the lichen-scarred rocks and wind-chewed shrubs, they avoided the steep cliff faces to the north which fell directly into the forest; all the while, they took the distant winding white of the main path into the village as their guide.

Taking short, sharp breaths, they let out a collective sigh of accomplishment when incline of the ground beneath their feet was finally level. Osa grinned at her. But she sought out the vital pathway: a lonely pass dominated on one side by sheer rocks faces, dwarfed on the other by an absolute drop into the valley below and scattered with rock scree nobody bothered to clear. Above her, their traversing walk across the side of the mountain was soaked with mist and cloud.

How picturesque.

She could tell from the roadway why Lord Asano had stationed his army all over the mountain: the geography made it impossible for anyone walking on the road to see – or defend himself – from anything which come from above. The pass was a treacherous stretch into a kilometre of vulnerability; through their entrance into the pass, she could only just make out the men from Lord Asano's armies dotting the slopes._If we were ambushed here, _she thought, _neither gods nor men would know anything about it._

Fortunately, they entered a bend, and from then on the slope leveled into what was a clear ridge, a plat plateau on which the village was located, surrounded like an island by rivulets and streams. The path started a consistent descent downwards and soon the claustrophobic cliff walls broadened out to reveal not just rocky ground, but scrub and grass. Prior to their reaching the gates of the village, the path was at its broadest, and other smaller, less noticeable paths led either back up the mountain or down to where rice grain appeared to be growing on the terraces.

A man was tending to his oxen at the gates. When he noticed them, she saw that he almost doubled over. When they neared, he gawked at them openly._Well, a lady and a man in bandages would be quite a sight, I suppose._

But he came up to them and was surprisingly polite: "My lord, my lady, excuse my behaviour. Please enter and treat our village as you would treat yours."

He followed them, and barked orders to several villagers who were also staring in disbelief at the new visitors.

As she stood at the main intersection just within the gates, she could see the entire village in one glance. The houses were shabby, the children gathering to ogle them seemed scrawny and unused to seeing strangers, and as a whole the village compound appeared very small. But almost every house appeared to tend cattle, a sure sign of some wealth; a sonorous, repetitive noise from nearby told her that the village housed a blacksmith within its gates. And along this main street, she could make out the tables and chairs and diners in what she supposed was a tavern.

"Do you get many visitors to this village?" she asked their host casually.

"No, my Lady, not many. The great Lord was the first in many months. The tavern was built for those who come in the summer."

_It's already fall. _Andshe made a mental note to ask him about that later as she and Osa started down the main street.

Passing the tavern, several men kept their eyes on them warily; from their gait, their axes and the firewood strung up in bundles around them, they were here to gather wood. _So it seems this village exists as a stopover for resource gatherers –_ it was the first assessment of the village that came to her mind. Staring down the hard glances of the men, she kept pace with Osa, who was heading towards the centre of the village, to the podium which dominated her view of the place when she had been gazing down at it from her position in the mountains.

When she reached the point where the structure stood proudly in the centre of the huts, Osa and her were staring at a statue, altar and shrine, all in one.

It was built out of a murky white marble, which had lost all its lustre and colour, in the shape of an altar. There, lit joss sticks, offerings of fruit and the dead whiteness of hard-boiled eggs were evidence the villagers paid homage at this shrine. The marble surrounding the offering table appeared shattered; it crumbled as it continued into the sloping roof of a trademark mini-pagoda which held the idol. She noticed their guide hung behind and watched them.

But the idol, leering out at them from the darkness of the half-open, was grotesque. It was a boar, stooping on four legs, with its fangs bared, and its eyes the blood-red of either potted shards or jewels. Its body was coated with what could have been torn edges of a real animal's fur and hair. It waited, completely overshadowed by the roof, but with its head sticking out briefly into the sunlight. As they looked closer, someone had smeared a red paste on its tusks and teeth, which seemed sickeningly like blood. In its frozen grimace, they half expected it to pounce on them.

"What is that – thing?" Osa asked the guide. He made no secret of his repulsion of the idol.

"He is the boar god of these mountains, my lord. He is the guardian spirit of the forests and the boars. We set up this altar to him so that we might pray for safety when we go out and work in the forests."

"This monster keeps you safe?"

The guide took Osa's comment like he had been scalded by hot iron, but he looked away with a kind of self-restraint she had seen all her life in that sleazy Kyoto street. She made a gesture to Osa, then eyed the man.

"Speak, sir. We are yet strangers here and we would be glad if you have any advice for us," she spoke to him.

His face lit with surprise, and he spoke as if afraid the ugly idol might overhear them: "Don't insult Lord Nago. He is a brutal and jealous spirit, who does not hesitate to take human life."

Silence flooded the space between them. But she eyed the man seeking something more believable.

"Old man Hyoko went into the wood last winter to gather firewood, and because he was old or because he was forgetful he did not pay his respects… when he did not return we dared not find him, and sure enough, when we sought firewood the snow was red with his blood, so red it was as if it was screaming out to us.

"And the time when we did not make a sacrifice before clearing a patch of wood," their guide's face paled and his hand gestures started becoming wild. "And we were attacked… and the creatures dragged four of our strongest back to the forest!"

"Wait," she intervened in what she believed was an over-dramatization, "what creatures are you talking about?"

"Animals! All kinds! Boars, foxes, wolves, bears, deer – attacked us!"

She did not know where Osa was thinking; true or not, it was not the most wholesome way to welcome guests.

The man paused, trying to get a reaction out of them. At the focus of the village, a crowd was gathering in a crescent around the shrine and the two newcomers: children, their mothers, and a ragtag gang of woodcutters, ironsmiths and game hunters. She did not feel threatened; even though she knew the deadly sin of underestimating potential opponents, but with the fire cannon slung around Osa's shoulder, no threat would be serious enough.

_If I'm so skeptical, then what about – _She thought of something, and then announced it freely to the crowd: "What did the Great lord do when he came here yesterday?"

He returned her with a thoughtful gaze first, as some of the women in the crowd murmured accordingly at the subject of someone as powerful as Lord Asano. Then the guard gaze a sigh, his eyes skimming around with look that seemed to wonder why no one was following his reaction.

"I tried to warn the great lord," he said, "but he did not listen to me…No, he did listen to all I told him at first. But when I asked him that, because so many of his men were in the area, and that he should pay his respects… but he refused."

"And he insulted Lord Nago!" someone else in the crowd finished the sentence.

"The board god will get him for sure," said a man who she identified as one of the woodcutters she saw earlier. "All my mates who insulted the boar god never got out the forest alive."

This time it was Osa who was trying to signal to her; in between the villagers' frantic definitions and descriptions of how big or how many boar gods there were, their gazes met, and within their hardworking glares, they were trying to connect everything, every circumstance, every meaning –

"Does it fit your explanation?" Osa asked, leaning in to whisper into her ear.

"For that I think we'll have to find out for ourselves," she replied.

Making it look like they were compelled to give in to their guide's wishes, they paid their respects at the shrine. The villagers did not suspect anything, but were sincerely curious: one moment they had walked in both looking unconvinced and with just several simple stories they were pouring rice wine, and lighting joss sticks and tucking them neatly into those by the altar

"But please let it be known that we are not like the great lord Asano," she added. "We respect your traditions, and we won't want to anger Lord Nago."

They left the villagers hanging on her words; by then they were finished, and they left with their guide as their excited escort, their offerings becoming just another set in the mould and joss stick wax of hundreds more already there.

Both of them, leaving the ambling crowd behind, walked mostly in silence, completely understanding why they had done. _And why it was needed, for now. _

"I forgot to ask, sir," she turned to the guide, "but you mentioned the tavern was built for visitors in summer. But what do these people come to the village for in that season?"

"The frost in the lower slopes melts and the ground is good to dig into. So prospectors and men who work metal come, to seek the fortunes," he replied.

"To seek their fortunes? I don't quite follow."

"A fortune in iron. The hills are rich with ore."

* * *

Osa and her had gone through their strategy very carefully. If this god was to make his appearance tonight, they would at least get a glimpse of whether their guide was telling the truth or creating a very big and troublesome lie. And if it was true, it would be an interesting estimate of what Lord Asano was going up against.

Then again, they both really wanted to just dismiss everything that had happened earlier as mere villagers' superstitions and stories to scare young children.

She had allowed Gonza and his men to rest tonight. In turn, her retainers and personal guard of some one hundred and seventy men would take charge of sentry duty, and securing the perimeters of their campsite. It was a good excuse for reconnaissance. But she found herself at the western edge, down slope from the vantage point where she could observe the entire valley and uncomfortably close to the shivering, murmuring forest – with one rifleman as her partner.

She realised being a sentry was not easy. As the night wore on, she had difficulty staying awake. _How did Gonza and his men stay alert the whole night, standing, with their blades, at attention? _Protected from the blast of the wind by rock, and sitting comfortably with her fire-cannon at her feet, she still could not help but nod off to sleep. Her rifleman compensated by playing with his flint and steel, occasionally striking sparks and sometimes accidentally burning his fingers.

_What in the name of Eboshi am I doing here?_

The darkness was so thick, so pressing, that it suffocated her if she failed to clamp her eyes shut; even in her own head, the self-created black within her own eyes felt more comfortable than the night shrouding her. And even there, she could make out the dim smear, a mental obstruction, that was the forest, swimming like a dream she could not shake off in her mind.

She did not know how much time had passed, or how deep in the night was it. But her semi-conscious sleep was interrupted by something distinctly not natural. She did not fix a location to the sound, but she turned to her rifleman.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"Eh?"

"_Baka_. You didn't hear anything?"

"No, my Lady I…"

And then they both heard it. Unmistakably, the sound of an explosion ripped through the compressed silence, sending the darkness away with a burst of dull red and a muffled echo which could only be a fire cannon going off. Before she could order the rifleman, a horrid scream made them jump.

"My lady…"

"Enough talking," she threw the man's fire cannon into his arms before picking hers. "Get up and move!"

The flash of red was obvious in the pitch black, and she scarcely had time to notice where her rifleman was heading towards. Someone cried, "We are under attack!" But she paid no heed. The night was flying past her – she saw figures moving in the dark. And she half-expected it when another shot tore through the forest with flash of yellow that it burned her eyes.

A massive thick mount of blackness was stirring just a stone's throw from her; it occupied the entire space she was running towards. Without hesitation, trained by her instinct and her trembling urgency, she fell to her knees, flung the flint from her cloak to her fingers, and lit it. She stabled herself, and at the same time felt the flint burst into life with a single strike. In a breath, she took the fire cannon on her shoulder and stabbed the flint in the cannon's hollow.

It let loose a welcoming yell of fire, iron and light.

And in the crescendo of that flash she saw two things: a hideous, red-eyed, skeletal monster, in the likeness of a boar, the height of the tree, digging in its tusks into a bloody mould of a man – and it bloodcurdling squeal as it dodged to avoid her shot.

Then all became dark again.

_Oh the gods! _

She could hear it moving, the clatter of hooves getting louder, the rumbling of the very air around her in anticipation for the monster._Help help help! – _she fumbled with the iron pellet and the powder and, her hands blackened, stuffed it into the shaft of the cannon – _oh the gods! – _by the time she brought the cannon to her shoulder, she felt the creature ram into her; for two seconds she seemed free of earthly restraint, then she landed painfully on her side.

"My lady!"

But she was not interested. Her fire-cannon was not with her, _but I'm still alive! _Another blast caught her eye: her rifleman had taken a shot at the charging boar, but missed. He turned to run, and she watched without helping long enough to see him get gored, and then run over by the huge animal –

The creature turned, tossed back its head to make another piercing squeal, before running back into the forest, accompanied by misguided attempts to shoot it down.

And just before it merged with the darkness again, she swore it glimpsed right at her: two convulsing, scarred red eyes like globes, mocking her –_Aiyo Eboshi…_

"My Lady! Are you hurt?"

It was Osa's voice – _so who did the creature kill? _Giving in to her reflexes, she clenched the arm that broke her fall; it responded, and then the feeling melted away. She could not feel any blood, but all she could think of was the plague of red eyes breaking through the dark foliage at her._It didn't kill me._ She panted and then the pain began to flow from her injured arm. _It didn't kill me for a reason, did it? _

A vague memory of joss sticks and incense and an ugly stone statue strained her mind. _That. _And she knew the silly precautions she and Osa took had worked. _Was it. _She summoned enough strength to lift her wounded arm into the support of her other. That same strength was still keeping her upright and unafraid to peel her eyes off the spot where the creature – no, god – _whatever_ – escaped. He had insulted and wounded her, and killed her men. She felt that this was a crime worse than Sesuke's taunts and his driving her brother to his grave.

_I will slay you, boar god._

Her injured arm throbbed in response to her hardening heart. It would not be the last time it would sustain injury, while fighting against these beings she had not yet acknowledged as gods.

* * *

NOTES: _Thanks for your patience. I've been having a sudden revival for prose writing for quite a while now; this chapter came out faster than usual. I'm concentrating on trying to reach a conclusion for my story, so that it won't drag on and on. _

_At this juncture, let me point out that it's getting difficult to be all-inclusive: trying to explain every aspect of Lady Eboshi's character is proving quite trying. Her association with lepers & brothel-girls, her weaponry, her feud with San… so, haha, please forgive me if I gloss over some things. Not that I would do so intentionally, but I might…_

_Exams next week, sial. 5 papers in 14 days! This is where writing really becomes catharsis. I used to write through my O & A level papers because it relaxed me. Now that I'm in university, these upcoming tests are going to help me prove that if you like writing, you can write anytime, in any circumstance. The next chapter will probably appear different – because it was written during the crunch time period! But till the next chapter… please read & review. Thanks!_


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